Jim: I think familiarity is a big thing in the preference for Steinway. Pianists and organists are the only ones who have to play a "strange" instrument when they do a concert. Everyone else (violinists, cellists, trombonists.....) take their own favorite instrument to play. Pianists play what's there. Seeing a piano that is familiar makes them more comfortable. None of us is naïve enough to believe that all Steinways are alike or all are wonderful, but they are familiar. Steinway's push for All Steinway School status is very smart. This prepares yet another generation of pianists who are the most familiar with Steinway. I have not been taught - by PTG or anyone else - that Steinway is a bad piano. When someone does set themselves up as "The Best" they are inviting pot shots. Even more so when you uncover some truly substandard work on a new instrument. When one claims the highest ground one has to maintain that consistently or you will take some hits from those who know. dp David M. Porritt, RPT dporritt at smu.edu<mailto:dporritt at smu.edu> From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Jim Busby Sent: Monday, May 17, 2010 3:00 PM To: caut at ptg.org Subject: Re: [CAUT] CAUT endorsement Jeff, As a "Steinway Technical Partner" I can tell you that many students are "on board" too. More students now go to Snow College because they are All Steinway. There are 3 other Steinway Schools in Utah, and all of them have seen dramatic enrollment increases. I would disagree that "anti-Steinway" is "taught" in PTG, although we have seen pot shots regularly taken at them. One thing I regularly see is artists demanding Steinway and/or choosing them over others, maybe because of the name, maybe because their sound has become the norm. I dunno. Maybe it's not just the faculty and administration that are "unfortunate naive victims of a clever corporate marketing scheme" but the students and artists too?? I personally like variety, and I understand your point. Jim Busby Snow College, and BYU From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of tannertuner Sent: Monday, May 17, 2010 11:19 AM To: caut at ptg.org Subject: [CAUT] CAUT endorsement And there is one more reason I believe it is unwise to include so much in the CAUT endorsement. Bill was right. For better or worse, universities are on board with this All-Steinway thing, and as much as we'd like to blame it on effective Steinway marketing, there is still a deeply entrenched appreciation for the Steinway product among piano faculty and performers. I mean, Yamaha, has an extremely effective marketing campaign as well, but most (not all) music department faculty, after playing a Yamaha, and most everything else, will still go back to old faithful that they're familiar with and have come to rely on. But in PTG, we are fortunate to learn that Steinway doesn't know how to make a piano, and that musicians and music faculty and administrators are unfortunate naive victims of a clever corporate marketing scheme. We learn in PTG, that as soon as you get a chance, you gut a Steinway, install a Boulduc soundboard, with a Wapinized Nossaman bridge, grind out the capo and install brass round stock, Delignit pinblock with Low-Torq tuning pins, rescale it with Rosalu steel strings, Arledge bass strings, install Renner wippens with rep spring adjustment screw and wippen assist springs, Abel shanks, Ronsen Wurtzen Bacon hammers, WNG capstans, Tokiwa backchecks, Yamaha damper felt, and the treble brace thingy the name of which escapes me, perform a Stanwood touchweight overhaul and you're on the way to turning it into a decent musical instrument. Now THAT'S a Steinway! Not that all those aren't without merit and I mean NO disrespect. But people who like Steinways are going to look at you like you've just claimed you were born in a galaxy far, far away, you've just arrived on earth in an egg shaped space capsule like your sister's cousin's uncle Mork, and that you're capable of turning soiled disposable diapers into 24 carat gold with the touch of the back side of your pinky toenail. As long as there is such an anti-Steinway approach to maintaining Steinways taught in the PTG, none of our credentials will ever mean a hill of beans to people who have a deep-seated love and respect for Steinways, which includes faculty and administrators at music schools. With all due respect, Jeff -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20100517/6db36ab8/attachment-0001.htm>
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