---prevoius post------ There is a picture of the clear acrylic Kawai on The Piano Page if that's what you're referring to. I got a chance to play (and tune) one in the eighties. It tuned OK, but sounded pretty poor compaged to a regular KG series grand. It had very little resonance and no carrying power whatsoever as I recall. It was an interesting gimmick though... John John Musselwhite, RPT Calgary, Alberta Canada musselj@cadvision.com ---end previous post---- Dear list, At one time I had a model KG-3D 6' Kawai piano in a plexiglass case at my store. The picture on the piano page was taken in 1993 at the Indianapolis Children's Museum during the time the piano was on loan to us from Kawai. Unlike John's experience, I found the piano to be very similar to the regular series Kawai the same size. The tone really didn't seem to be greatly different. The newer actions employ a butterfly type spring and seems nicer. As John says, it was a great gimmick. According to the Museum, May (the month they had the piano) is their busiest month because of the added traffic the Indianapolis 500 brings. Their attendance was over two hundred thousand people. Along with the piano we also sent a Kawai action model for a hands on display. After watching every kid and parent pound on it five or six times I truly began to realize what a neat piece of machinery a piano action is. That action model probably got over a million hits that month! Sure it's a gimmick but what a tremendous way to introduce lots of people to the piano. We all should be looking for those unusual ways to promote both ourselves and the instrument we work on. Bill Scharbrough RPT
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