[CAUT] becoming an All Steinway School

[Martin Snow]

Hi folks,
thanks for your responses thus far. It is indeed a
great marketing ploy,  the idea of becoming an All
Steinway School. My recommendations to Faculty and
administration however would never be to recommend the
instruments that S&S use as ''filler'' to compliment
the inventory to become an  All Steinway School.
namely Boston pianos of any variety,   Essex [ouch],
and 1098's. In the Boston piano price point, I would
undoubtedly prefer having Yamaha and Kawai on
inventory. What I have always found intriguing is that
S&S  have assumed that we  as techs. would have have
the same amount of respect and admiration, for  every
subsequent piano they have  designed and  produced.
This trickle down theory is flawed. Yes ,for the most
part, Steinway grands are majestic instruments to have
on inventory, BUT Boston pianos  were introduced to
compete against Yamaha, in that  price point, and
Essex pianos were introduced to compete against
initially Korean pianos, now because of global  shift,
 it is  Chinese pianos in that same price point.
We have 180 pianos on inventory,  120 grands and 60
uprights. The grands are  S&S [60] mostly from the
1970's .....Baldwin's from the mid 1980's [40], and
Mason and Hamlin  model A's and BB's from not the
greatest vintage . the 1970's. The  remainder of the
inventory is Baldwin Hamilton, M&H,  and Sohmer
uprights. The grands have  almost all been rebuilt and
refinished over the years, the uprights refinished and
re-conditioned
My recommendations to Administration and Faculty for
20 years, has always been to  invest in our current
inventory. At this juncture I would much prefer to
purchase from the marketplace those pianos that best
meet our more pressing demands. As we ''trickle down''
pianos through the tiers of the inventory from  
1..Performance...2..Teaching
Studios...3...Classrooms...4...Practice Rooms, it
greatly extends the  longevity of  these well made
pianos. It is time to replace some instruments at the
top tier, the Performance pianos.
I am wondering also if S&S has more success in selling
the All Steinway School  idea to those institutions
that do not have a  technician on staff , but who work
 on a contract  arrangement  with local techs. I'd
welcome  all input.......... 


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