I have gotten the question so many times
which is better Ivory keys or plastic
key tops now this a tremendous romance
with ivories but are they really better
this Steinway has beautiful original
Ivory keys and you know it is a nice
field uh however there are some
drawbacks to Ivory namely their porous
so as you can see the yellow lightly
also they're much more susceptible to
dirt they have to be cleaned more often
but there is a nice feel there almost a
little bit of texture some ivories are
more polished than others so they do
have different feels let's contrast that
with plastic ke tops like you get on all
new pios uh and they're uniform they
look Pure White um are you missing out
on anything when I was very young I
found uh that my in my house my father
had a styo with ivories and a bald one
with plastic heat Toops and if I my
hands were dry I found the ivories to be
slippery and the Plastics I get nice
nice traction but then when I play
recital and I had a little bit of sweat
on my fingers from being nervous I'd
slip all over the plastic but the
ivories I could grip better so judge for
yourself which one is better there are
some moral questions uh as well uh the
question of uh killing elephants of
course they are no longer sacrificing
elephants for Ivory so it's really in
the past uh and then of course there
environmental issues with plastic so
there's a lot of things to consider
bottom line there really isn't a whole
heck of a lot of difference they either
one could work fine uh certainly if you
have ivories on a piano they're in good
shape it's kind of a gift and the
elephants are already have been already
sacrificed so I don't really see any
problem with uh you know working with
ivories that are there and there is
something kind of nice about the feel of
ivories you know if I had a choice I
probably honestly would uh like the
ivories if they're really in good shape
but often times the ivories are not in
impeccable shape in which case a good
set of plastics might be functionally
better you make the decision not the
most important criteria for choosing a
piano but I thought I'd share this
observations with you about Ivory versus
plastic keops thanks for joining me
Robert eston here at Living pianos