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How is a piano recorded?

What prompted this question is this afternoon's activity: going to the mall, an obligatory task of being a husband, we entered through Nordstrom. As the habit of Nordstrom is, they usually have a pianist play a baby grand near their escalators in the middle of the store. So while my better half was browsing, my son and I watched the pianist.
From a certain distance, I certainly couldn't localize where the lower register or the upper register or anything in between was, the piano sounded as a whole, singular unit. However, that's not the case in many recordings, at least what I have: the piano is spread wide b/w l & r speakers. Is this the result of close-miking the piano? I wonder why the rec engrs don't make it more like real live, but I have no experience or skill or any background in recording so I don't know. What are the considerations for close miking like this?
yr44

Showing 1 response by barnz1

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barnz1
11 posts
 
I guess I'm outing myself as an "audiophile" but this talk about a live musical instrument reminds me of a story about a turntable... :)

Someone I worked with was demonstrating a certain high-end turntable to a difficult customer who didn't think it would make a beneficial difference. The customer brought in his table and some Brubeck records. When the 'good' table was played, the customer began shaking his head "no, no, no. The sound is no good, it sounds like you closed the lid of the piano."
My friend picked up the customer's record jacket and said "during this phase of Brubeck's career he always played with the lid closed, as you can see in this photo."
The customer quickly made his purchase and went home to rediscover the rest of his collection!
(At least, that's the way I remember it...) :)
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