On Tue, Jul 6, 2010 at 4:37 PM, John Delacour <JD at pianomaker.co.uk> wrote: > At 16:27 -0400 6/7/10, Al Guecia/AlliedPianoCraft wrote: > > ...I say, bash the management, bash the way it leaves the factory, but it's >> still a Steinway and can be made to be a Steinway in the right hands. >> > > I'd be interested to hear what simple trick can be used to straighten out a > Steinway plate that gives a 7mm variation in strike height, as I have had in > both the latest grands (a D and a B) that I've had to deal with. Neither of > them left the Hamburg factory (in 1970 and 1985 respectively) with the > hammers correctly matched to the anomalous frame and therefore neither of > them had ever performed as they were intended to perform. > > Steinway is on more concert stages than any other piano. >> Steinway is requested by more artist than any other piano. >> > > Does that mean that the Steinway is a beautifully made work of art and a > fine musical instrument? Far from it. With a lot of expensive after-sales > work most Steinway grands can be made acceptable and a few (generally very > old ones) exceptional. Nevertheless no serious improvements have been made > to the Steinway for 120 years and the scaling was well behind the times even > in 1900. The bass strings can be greatly improved, as Will Truitt has > mentioned, but only within the limits of the given string scale, which is > archaic and faulty by any standards. > > A well-prepared Steinway is probably the best choice for a concert hall > that cannot afford to provide and maintain the 6 or 7 different instruments > that ought to be offered to musicians according to the music to be played. > The piano that is suitable for a Rachmaninoff concerto is not suitable for > a recital of Scarlatti or Bach, and for these even the best-prepared > Steinway will be a poor substitute for a piano suited to the music in > question. > > As to "artistes", they are generally quite ignorant of the possibilities, > since they, and the public, have been conditioned for years and years to > believe the Steinway is a Stradivari with three legs. Half the Steinways I > hear on the radio sound shockingly bad. I think the public has no idea. So > long as they can clap and holler at the end they don't care what the piano > sounds like provided it's vaguely in tune. > > If a Steinway is good, the credit goes 90% to the technicians, tuners and > toners who bring it to life and 10% to Steinway for providing the raw, very > raw, materials. > > Nevertheless the tonal characteristics of a "good" Steinway make it the > best choice, I think, for any concert hall. I've never heard a good Yamaha, > I hate the Bösendorfer. Kawai is a fine piano but their marketing hasn't > been good enough. The Fazioli is beautifully made but seems to lack > something in the sparkle department, etc. etc. > > The greatest shame is that for years and years nearly all the others have > been taking the Steinway sound as the standard. It is only on the rare > occasions that you hear music performed on a very different instrument that > you realise that the Steinway sound is not the only possible flavour, and in > many cases it is far from the most suitable. The great pianists of 100 years > ago most certainly did not all prefer the Steinway, even when it was a lot > better than it is today. > > JD > > > I wrote the following in a discussion about all-steinway schools but it's just as relevant to this discussion: One factor I didn't see mentioned, directly, that I believe, as time has passed has proven to have been the most brilliant marketing strategy was the inception of the Steinway Artist program I don't know when, exactly it began but I know it was in full swing in the 1950's. If a pianist agreed to perform ONLY on Steinway instruments then he/she had the use, at no cost except moving and technician fees(usually written into the performance contract) of any of the 356 I believe was the number I was given, S&S concert grands available worldwide. There, I submit to you is the beginning of the Steinway cult. If you know musicians like I do, offer them use of a superior instrument at no cost to themselves, they will be lining up down the street and around the block. Flash forward to the 1980's and Yamaha announces their own Yamaha Artist program but there are no takers, no one is leaving S&S, no independents are coming to them. So they quietly ask why? Some of the artists told them what we had been hearing for years, if you've played one Yamaha you've played them all! Yamaha was still building their concert grands on an assembly line. So they put together a team of some of their best people and began hand building Yamaha Concert Grands, now they have an artist program, it doesn't rival S&S's yet but it's growing. Steinway is ingrained in american culture as the best piano because for the last almost 60 years that is primarily what they saw, except for Borge's Bosie and Ferrante and Teicher's Baldwins. Over the last 25 years we are seeing more Yamahas, Kawais and others at concerts and on TV but the general population is still of the opnion that S&S is the best. Many of them have never heard of Bosendoerfer, Bechstein, Steingraeber & many of the other european pianos that in many ways are superior to S&S. As for the musicians, as one of the other techs put it in an earlier discussion about all Steinway schools, Steinways are like *COMFORT FOOD* to many pianists. It's what they learned on, played at school, have played much of their career on, they don't have to work as hard to play them because it's a known factor. Playing something different might be like starting over, uncomfortable, too different, in other words, it's a fear of the unknown. I used to sell pianos, briefly, many years ago and I discovered the most difficult customer to even attempt to sell to was a church committee. Why, you may ask? Because each or most had a different brand of home piano, so each was looking for the touch and tone they were used to on their piano, making it impossible for them to agree. The comfort factor, in action. Mike -- It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC) Michael Magness Magness Piano Service 608-786-4404 www.IFixPianos.com email mike at ifixpianos.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20100706/9595904d/attachment.htm>
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