small vs large grands

[Stéphane Collin]

Hi Stephen.

I believe, for most non technician people I know, the smaller footprint is 
the reason n°1 for buying a smaller piano : appartments are small in town 
(average 5 m x 5 m for a domestic room in Brussels) and few people are 
readdy to sacrifice the divan.  Then, what you hear often say is that the 
piano should be in proportion with the room : many believe (without having 
tried) that a large grand can not sound at it's right in a small room, and 
vice versa.
In the old used pianos market here, you see often larger grands underprized 
because they are so much more difficult to sell.  Nevertheless, even then 
they stay difficult to sell.

Your point raises another one : why do the huge majority of professionnal 
recording artists use exclusively very large pianos for recording and 
performing ?
My try : reason n°1 : prestige (archetypical analogy between large and 
mighty, thus glorious), and n°2 : the cleaner deeper bass thing (but in 
Mozart, they don't use it, do they ?).
I sincerely regret that musicians don't feel free to chose, in some 
situations, even a very nice upright [an old one, of course, with lots of 
personality (flame suit on, thank you Conrad : they work great !)] that 
would better fit the music they play.

Best regards.

Stéphane Collin.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Stephen Birkett" <sbirkett@real.uwaterloo.ca>
To: "Pianotech" <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Friday, September 30, 2005 4:10 AM
Subject: small vs large grands


> Why do consumers buy a small grand instead of a large grand?
>
> Two obvious reasons:
>
> 1. cheaper
> 2. more suited to domestic conditions because
> (a) smaller footprint and/or
> (b) not as loud
>
> but it's not clear which of these is the driver, and whether different 
> reasons apply to different classes of consumer.
>
> I'll pose a hypothetical question and short circuit reason #1: suppose all 
> grands of a particular famous make sold for the same amount. Would you 
> expect reason #2 to still drive consumers to the smaller grands, and if so 
> is it (a) and (b) that kicks in? or would you expect most consumers to go 
> for the big grands and somehow make them work in their domestic 
> circumstances?
>
> Stephen
> -- 
> Dr Stephen Birkett
> Piano Design Lab
> Department of Systems Design Engineering
> University of Waterloo, Waterloo ON Canada N2L 3G1
> tel: 519-888-4567 Ext. 3792
> Lab room E3-3160 Ext. 7115
> mailto: sbirkett[at]real.uwaterloo.ca
> http://real.uwaterloo.ca/~sbirkett
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