Saddest, Temperaments, Hope

[Les Smith]

On Tue, 27 Jan 1998, Michael Jorgensen wrote:

> Hello List,
>     "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting
> different results." a quote from a profs studio which applies to pianos 
> and tuners!   Money for R&D is a joke, Tuners tune ET only, No Romance,
> The industry declines, customers don't tune pianos often enough,
> Computers replace pianos as the sign of "culture"-- it's all related.
> 
>     Solution: CREATIVITY & NEW IDEAS.
> 
> Idea 1:Listen to Del Fandrich!  Industry needs to put more into R&D and
> get the public excited about it. Let's make these things better and
> develope some new cool stuff.
> 

You say on the one hand, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over
and expecting different results" and then you follow it with "Listen to
Del Fandrich! Industry needs to put more into R&D". Well, if you sit
around and STILL keep on hoping that the piano industry is going to
reverse a trend that has been going on for decades and suddenly start
putting more money into R&D, you're probably going to end up in a rubber
room with bars on the windows. It just ain't going to happen. 

Instead of listening to what Del is saying, LOOK AT WHAT HE IS DOING! If
the industry had the slightest bit of serious interest in R&D, STEINWAY
WOULD BE MAKING KILLER B'S, NOT DEL! If the American-built acoustic piano
has any future at all it, it rests in the hands of the Del Fandrich's of
of the world and his idea of VAR. Fortunately, the large numbers of old,
but still surviving pianos which date from this country's once-illustrious
turn-of-the-century past, will provide him--and hopefully, others like
him--enough raw material with which to work for a LONG time. In other
words, if the American-built acoustic piano has any future at all, it
rests not with the manufacturers, but with those of you reading this post
right now.

Les Smith
lessmith@buffnet.net