Digital Piano at the computer desk?

[IvanL]

I'm looking for ideas, hints, suggestions, tales of pitfalls etc. on how to ergonomically combine a full sized 88 key digital piano with a full sized computer workstation (e.g. multiple monitors, large keyboard, enough mouse space, speakers etc.).

It's important that neither is an afterthought. Both the computer input area and the digital piano should be easily accessible and have a way to be comfortably usable for prolonged durations.

One of the most obvious solutions would be to have an extendable tray for the piano and another extendable tray on top for the computer input area. I did a quick calculation of the heights and it might just barely fit, i.e. legs + tray + piano + tray + computer keyboard might be low enough to not strain the shoulders, but it'd be tight.

The other possibility is to have a large L-shaped or curved desk and put both the piano and computer input devices on the same level, next to each other. I guess many people have tried this already; is a single table height comfortable for both tasks?

[Nicholas]

I'm not sure about a solution for an every-day workstation, but for a piano-specific workstation (where it -- and especially Synthesia -- are always the "main event", so to speak), I've had some success with the following:

Acer makes a 27" touch-screen monitor that includes Vesa mounting holes. That plastic bezel at the bottom comes off with just a couple removed screws. I put a sheet of plywood on a typical aluminum "cross bar" piano stand, so that I could attach the re-positioning monitor arm. With that setup, you can bring the bottom of the monitor directly over the piano keys. The touch-screen doubles as your mouse and keyboard in Windows. And interacting with Synthesia is a lot of fun -- a bit like using it on a giant tablet. Using the "Custom" zoom option in Synthesia, you can have it match the keyboard exactly, and then you can drag the virtual keyboard off the screen completely so the falling notes fall directly to your real, physical piano keys. It's probably the best experience you can have with Synthesia.

That said, most of that sounds like it doesn't necessarily apply to your use case. Still, it seemed worth sharing in case there were any reusable ideas (or something to spark your own ideas) in there.

[jimhenry]

An 88 key keyboard is large, and if weighted, pretty heavy too. I think you have to put the 88 keys at the bottom of whatever arrangement you come up with. I recently got an On Stage 2 tier Z stand to hold two music keyboards: https://on-stage.com/products/view/12763/116995 It is a reasonably priced, sturdy stand. You could easily put a desktop on the upper tier to hold the computer workstation. The height of the computer work station might be a bit higher than ideal though.

[IvanL]

Jim, thanks for the suggestion, but that is in no way suited for prolonged computer use.

[jimhenry]

Would it work for your purposes to put the piano at right angles to the computer desk, like a typewriter return?

[IvanL]

I thought about doing that, I'll try once I move. So just a regular computer work station and a keyboard stand at a right angle.