Les and list, As usual, you so eloquently said what I have attempted to say several times. Each time I was met, as you were, with protests, disagreement and the belief that this type of remark is "spreading negativity." I see no negativity in your post. I do see, however, a stark reality that we should take out of the closet and examine. I doubt that any of us are young enough to be concerned about our income. There will always be acoustic pianos, especially the high quality instruments. There will be enough people in our age group (and older) to provide us a living. The reality is, there are dramatically fewer acoustic pianos manufactured today than 20 years ago. That number is decreasing annually. I can't put my hands on the exact figures, but it's not new news. Likewise, there will always be classical music. It will just be listened to more selectively. People are no longer buying the idea that "classical" music is "good" because it's classical. What is classical music anyway? Isn't it simply the "top chart hits of 1726?" I suggest to you that Bach will still be getting "airplay" in another hundred years and so will John Lennin. In the information society, where music performance is so easily captured and distributed, the artists will continue to create and distribute but the consumer has many, many more choices to choose from. Great music will live, good music will come and go, the rest - well, the artists still had the opportunity to make their creative statement. The piano is simply one tool in the composer's tool kit. While most of us are here because we have a strange attraction to the beast, the majority of musicians see it as simply a tool. There are now so many more tools in that tool box, the acoustic piano no longer holds it's mystique. Let's each of us look at our customer base. Are most of our customer's kids taking lessons or are they adults? A personal example: in 1960, there were at least 6 kids in my 10-year-old Sunday School department that could pick up a hymnal and play for the department on Sunday morning. I'm still a member of the same church, I maintain their 32 pianos, including an SD-6 concert grand, and there aren't even enough people to play for each department on Sunday morning. Unfortunately that's not a problem, because most of the members would rather sing to pre-recorded tracks anyway. Another church I used to tune for GAVE me their last acoustic piano for hauling it off. This is not some poor little small church, but a church with over 2500 families on the rolls, and lots of money. Enough money, in fact, to put electronic keyboard's everywhere they needed a piano. As for historical temperaments, most electronic keyboards have alternate tunings built in, as well as the opportunity to enter user-defined tuning data. Historical temperaments are wonderful to explore, but certainly not at the cost of re-tuning the piano for every piece of music. With electronics however, all music students can be exposed to the alternate tunings. Perhaps Les, the statement that the beast is "dying a slow, steady, agonizing death" is a little harsh. To a person who has the love and devotion to the instrument that you do, it certainly seems that way. Perhaps it may be more reasonable to say that the acoustic piano has lost the grandeur and mystique it once had and it has reached its maturity. Perhaps that's for the best. At least every furniture store in town isn't pushing Betsy Ross spinets and naugahyde Wurlitzers. And yes, I work on electronic keyboards and sound systems. Danny Moore http://www.setexas.com/danmoore/ Les Smith wrote: > On Fri, 16 Jan 1998, A440A wrote: > > Sorry, Ed, I gotta disagree, There'e a revolution in the making all right, but > it's not in tuning. The acoustic piano has been dying a slow, steady, agonizing > death for a long time now. The process is irreversable.<<snip>> In case anyone > hasn't noticed, Classical music is dead.<<really big snip>>
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