LEGO Ideas and CUUSOO

Grand Piano

A brick baby grand that actually plays music, and it's genuinely gorgeous.

4.4/5

Set 21323 · 2020

Pieces3,662

Minifigsn/a

Year2020

Set number21323

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The verdict

If your mate loves music, mechanical builds, or just wants a proper showpiece on the shelf, this one's an easy yes.

It's the first LEGO® set that plays real notes, and the working key-and-hammer action is honestly clever stuff. Just be clear-eyed about the price, the app dependency, and the fact you can't truly play tunes on it before handing over the cash.

Best for: adult builders who love music and mechanical engineering

The full review

What it is

Right, let's talk about the Grand Piano, because this is one of those LEGO® sets that makes people stop and stare. It's a 3,662-piece brick recreation of a baby grand, and the headline is a big one: it's the first LEGO set that actually plays real music. Pop in some batteries, connect the free Powered Up app, and the little motor drives the keys so the thing plays itself. The lid lifts, the keyboard slides out, and the whole silhouette (those curvy sides, the tapered legs) genuinely reads as a piano from across the room. Brickset's community scores it 4.4 out of 5, which is strong for a set this pricey, and reviewers keep coming back to how satisfying it is to lift the lid and watch the mechanism do its thing. For a music lover, it's about as good as a gift gets.

The catch

Now the honest bit, because your mate deserves it before they spend the money. This is a $399.99 set, and you'll need six AAA batteries that LEGO doesn't include, so factor that in. The build has a repetitive stretch too: there are 25 keys, black and white, and they're all nearly identical, so you settle into a bit of an assembly line for a while. Plenty of reviewers spread that section over a couple of sessions. And here's the one that trips people up. You can't really play it like an instrument. When you use the app's user-play mode it triggers preset songs, so pressing the 'wrong' key still plays the right tune. It doesn't detect which key you actually hit. Reviewers across the board wished it did, because if it truly worked it would be one of the most impressive LEGO sets ever made. It's a small letdown against otherwise brilliant engineering.

Who it's for

So who's this for? Adult builders who love pianos, mechanical puzzles, or just want a serious statement piece for the shelf or, fittingly, to sit on top of an actual grand piano. The way the build teaches you how a real piano works (the hammers striking, the dampers lifting, the pedal doing its job) is the real payoff, and it's a lovely display model once it's done. Who should skip it? Anyone hoping to genuinely tinkle out a tune, and anyone who finds long repetitive sections a chore. It's also retiring around the end of 2026, so if your mate's been eyeing it, that's the nudge to grab it at retail. For the right person, this is a keeper.

The parts story

What the build is actually like, and the pieces worth knowing about.

The build is broken into lots of small stages, which keeps a 3,662-piece project from feeling like a mountain. You start with the internal frame and the mechanics, and that's where it gets genuinely interesting: you're assembling working hammers, dampers, and the pedal linkage, so you actually learn how a piano makes sound as you go. Then comes the keyboard, two full octaves of independently moving black and white keys, which is the repetitive-but-satisfying middle stretch. The keys use a clever loose connection, resting on inverted cone pieces so each one can pivot freely. The finish is the fun part, wrapping the frame in those smooth curved panels and adding the legs and lid, plus a little stool with some neat techniques of its own.

No new molds were made for this one, but the parts story is still tasty. There are 25 pearl gold hoses standing in as the piano strings, and six black curved 1x4x3 bricks recolored for those signature body curves. Two printed pieces are the collector bait: a black 2x2 inverted tile with a gold LEGO print for the underside of the fallboard, and a white 6x6 tile printed as the sheet music for 'Playday', a song written by the original fan designer. As a Powered Up set with a motor, hub, and all those working parts, most builders reckon the part-count value holds up well for the price.

Fun facts

01The Grand Piano started as a LEGO Ideas submission from Donny Chen, a piano teacher who was LEGO Ideas' very first Chinese fan designer.
02It's the first-ever LEGO set that plays real music, using a motor and the Powered Up app rather than just moving parts.
03The printed sheet-music tile honors 'Playday', a song Donny composed and featured in his original Ideas pitch video.
04Fittingly for the theme, reviewers noted it looks especially good displayed on top of a real grand piano.