PTG Article

[Delwin D Fandrich]

rmartin21@juno.com wrote:
> 
> Del
> 
> I sat in a motel room with the OWNER of a well known factory about 10
> years ago. We were having a smoke and sipping a bit of the grape. I said,
> "George,(not his real name) how's business?'. He replied, "Not so good,
> Ralph." I said "Why is that?"
> He replied, "The Asian pianos are killing us.". I couldn't let this drop,
> so I said, "How come?'". He replied, " To be honest with you...they're
> building a damn good piano."
> I quickly said, "Why don't you?".
> 
> Do you know. he couldn't answer my question?

After thinking about the above for a bit, another incident came to
mind...

In the late seventies I was having lunch with the president of "a well
known factory." 

I had brought up the subject of possibly improving the design of one of
their pianos. Before I had the opportunity to propose any of my ideas he
explained to me that this was neither necessary nor possible. His
company had perfected the design of the piano by the mid 1930's and
there was nothing was left to improve other than to develop more
efficient methods of manufacturing them.

Fortunately for him, the leaders of other factories must agree with him
since most "new" pianos that have been introduced within the past few
decades do basically emulate the acoustic designs of old (pre 1940's)
American or German designs and have broken little new ground. (Which is
not to say that there have not been new ideas since then. Check the
Patent Office.)

The best widget in the world will only retain that title until a better
widget comes along. If you do nothing to continually develop and evolve
your widget, sooner or later (OK, much later, in the piano industry)
someone will come along to displace you. Obviously, as long as marketing
runs the show, that may be a long time. As essential as strong marketing
is to the sucess of a company, I've never met a marketing man or women
yet who really understood what the piano is all about.

Marketing has defined a "high quality" piano as one having excellence in
construction and assembly, it must be perceived as having the proper
"hand-crafted" components, it must have those "features" that marketing
has determined to be impressive, and it must be made from the proper
materials coming from the proper countries.

Those things are important, of course. But, the discriminating pianist
is more impressed the sound of the piano--and there we have yet a long
way to go.

If the piano happens to have a tone character that is less than
desirable, no matter. You emphasise it and make that a feature as well.
You can probably fool enough of the people--even some fairly good
pianists--long enough to get them to buy a piano.

ddf