Silent Pianos

Promenade Music sells both Yamaha Silent Pianos and Kawai Anytime Pianos which are traditional acoustic pianos with the added advantage of having a digital piano sound chip in them so you can play without disturbing others in the same room. When the silencing function has been activated by pressing the centre pedal, the hammer is stopped from striking the string, optical sensors capture every nuance of play and relay them through a tone generator, which digitally samples the acoustic piano sound and sends it through the headphones. Basically it's like having an acoustic piano and digital piano in one instrument.