About this piano: (Special Limited Edition Signature Series Red Elton John Yamaha Disklavier Model DC7M4T EJ, serial #6220016

Sir Elton John’s wildly successful “The Red Piano” Show at the Colosseum at Caesar’s  Palace in Las Vegas ran from February 2004 through March 2009. Over the course of the engagement, nearly a million people came to see the show. Originally booked for 3 years and 75 performances, the show was held over for an additional two years and a total of 241 performances because of high demand.

In commemoration of his “Red Piano” Show, Yamaha, who over the course of 120 years in business has achieved world-renown as maker of some of the world’s finest pianos, -and who also supplies the pianos for Sir Elton’s tours and concerts-, created a special “Limited Edition Signature Series” of 30 “Red Piano” Disklavier Mark IV grand pianos. These were replicas of the pianos Sir Elton used on stage in his show, and which were finished, just like the ones Sir Elton played, in the exact same glossy maraschino cherry red color, and made available for sale to the public by special order through Yamaha. In addition to the special finish, these special edition pianos had Sir Elton’s original signature in gold on the music desk (each signature is unique and one-of-a-kind)(-in other words, it is not a facsimile or a decal – it is his actual signature-) and each piano, unlike the other Mark IV Disklaviers that Yamaha makes, has 6 original recordings of Sir Elton’s most popular songs resident in the piano, songs like Tiny Dancer, Your Song, Rocket Man, and Candle in the Wind, featuring Sir Elton himself singing, and playing the piano, with orchestrations as well. The keys on the piano’s keyboard go up and down just as if Sir Elton himself were sitting there, and you also hear his voice coming from inside the piano.

The first “A” Edition of 30 grands came out around 2005-6, and later, around 2007-8, Yamaha added a second, “B” Edition of 20 additional grands because of the demand. These grands came in various sizes, anywhere from a small Model DC1M4T EJ grand, at 5’ 3” long, up to a very large Model DC7M4T EJ grand at 7’ 6” long. Although Red 9’ Yamaha concert grands were used by Sir Elton himself in the Red Piano show, the DC7’s were the largest of the pianos that were made available to the public. There were only a very limited number of the larger DC7’s among the 50 total pianos of different sizes in the Special Limited Edition Series A and B, -so this is indeed a rare piano.

A brass plaque affixed to the fallboard of each of these Limited Edition Signature Series pianos denotes the Edition and Unit number of each piano. This particular piano is Unit 16 of 20 from the later B edition of 20 grands that Yamaha issued around 2007-8, and bears the serial number 6220016.

This particular Red Elton John Disklavier Model DC7 Limited Edition grand is also unique because it is actually in “like-new condition” (and still has the original sales tags on it!) It was purchased by the winner of a mega-lottery who loved pianos and bought a large number of them with her winnings, but who unfortunately passed away before many of the pianos could even be moved from the warehouse into her home. This piano is one of those that never made it out of the warehouse, -so everything on the piano is in like-new condition. It comes with a brand new tablet and pocket controller from Yamaha, and both the piano and controller devices have been updated to the very latest Mark IV version 4.1 and tablet and pocket controller version 1.1.1 software. The piano can now also be conveniently controlled from an iPhone, or iPad, with the downloading of a free iPhone Disklavier Controller app from Yamaha.

The piano’s “Media Center” will take all the different types of Disklavier CD’s, as well as the legacy floppy disks, -and also USB flash drives. The player piano part of the instrument not only can play by itself, but also with orchestrated accompaniment and vocals from famous singers, vocalists, and recording artists.

Any Yamaha Mark IV series Disklavier is a pretty spectacular piano, with features like an 80 gigabyte hard drive that holds thousands of songs/pieces of music, the ability to record and play back your own performances on the keyboard, internet connectivity, the ability to download songs from Yamaha’s online DisklavierMusicStore and MusicSoft Store, and also stream music from Yamaha’s DisklavierRadio site, and also the ability to upgrade and update the piano’s software and pocket/tablet controllers directly from Yamaha using the internet, -among the many, many other amazing things it can do. Most recently, the ability to stream and sync to DisklavierTV broadcasts, as well as syncing to other video during recording, has been an important feature added to the Mark IV operating system. There are way too many valuable and useful features this piano has, to list in their entirety here, but rest assured that Yamaha has continued, and will continue to enhance the piano’s feature set with even more valuable capabilities, through software downloads and version upgrades.

This particular piano is not only a Mark IV series instrument, but in addition is a PRO series, meaning that it has much higher resolution in the recording and playback capabilities than the standard Mark IV pianos The PRO series instruments record 1023 discrete levels of key and hammer velocity, rather than the 127 levels the standard Mark IV’s are confined to. This greatly enhances the sensitivity of the playing AND recording. The PRO series instruments are specifically designed for high quality studio recording and playback.

This Elton John Limited Edition Signature series piano adds, to the already considerable Mark IV feature set, -and the PRO feature set-, the special cherry red finish, Sir Elton’s original signature, the brass plaque denoting the Limited Edition Letter and Unit number, and 6 unique and original interpretations by Sir Elton himself of some of his most popular songs.

This piano is not only an extremely high quality artist instrument, as well as a technological marvel, but is a collector’s item as well.

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