[CAUT] Steinway or Forgery?

[Richard Brekne]

Hi Ben..

First I'd like to echo that this last post of yours was a bit hard to 
sort out with regards to who said what and when your comments came in.  
Perhaps a bit of careful "typesetting" might help ?  That said I did 
pick out this last quote (below) as it is such a sore point for so many. 
We hear a lot of talk about how the industry plays such nasty political 
games to gain marketing advantages and one of the is the incessant 
re-drawing of the basic Steinway philosophy your quote below refers to. 
Steinway actually does and has succeeded beyond anyones wildest 
imagination in meeting the needs/desires of the market by adhering to 
this building philosophy. It creates a whole field of instruments which 
vary widely, yet still retain something that is somehow recognizable as 
the <<Steinway sound>>.  And no... this is not purely illusion. Anymore 
then Bohemia creates its own typical sound picture... or any other 
factory.  Some factories and builders strive to create as predictable 
and equalized sound response instrument to instrument as they can.... 
and they get equally criticized for that.  Seems you can win for loosing.

I go back to this I've said a thousand times... live and let live.  If 
S&S wants to do the <<let em vary>> approach then thats their bag and if 
Yamaha wants to do the <<make them as alike as possible thing>> then 
thats their bag... and so what ?  I don't personally see how that in 
itself is an impedance to anyone else doing their thing.  Nor do I see 
how "loosing it" over how cruddy the world of marketing politics helps 
anyone either... however understandable that frustration can be.

Cheers
RicB


    Steinways are born, not made. We are part of a maturation process.
    It is easy to get angry with a child when he or she fails to get
    things right immediately, or has to be told more than once what to
    do. We cannot know what a child will grow up to be, and a child may
    defy our expectations. We may not be in complete control for the
    process of development while raising a child, and the child may go
    in directions we disapprove of, but usually the child will end up
    finding his or her own way. This is the way it is with Steinways.

    Not being in control all the time discomforts us, but with a
    Steinway, that is the way it has to be. Each one has its own
    character and personality, and we abuse lacquer when we use it to
    change that. I am definitely getting better at not trying to make a
    Steinway be something it is not. And a new one is just not mature
    yet. It is frustrating, because we want it to be an adult
    immediately, but eventually with good rearing it turns into
    something better than we expected it to be.