Fw: Yamaha reply

[pianoman]

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> From: pianoman <pianoman@inlink.com>
> To: jwod@creighton.edu; pianotech@ptg.org
> Subject: Re: Yamaha reply
> Date: Wednesday, September 24, 1997 3:57 PM
> 
> 
> 
> ----------
> > From: jwod@creighton.edu
> > To: pianoman@inlink.com
> > Subject: Yamaha
> > Date: Wednesday, September 24, 1997 7:50 AM
> > 
> > 
> > Hi, Yes, now you have my curiosity going. please tell me about his
first
> > piano. Did they ever build a reproducing grand?
> > 
> > 
> >      Sincerely
> > 
> >      Stanley Gross
> >      Omaha, NE      jwod@creighton.edu
> Dear Stan,
> No reproducing pianos that I know of till recently.
> The story goes that Yamaha had a very successful reed organ business
(over
> 2,000 a year) until the early in the 1900 when Yamaha met a fellow named
K.
> Kawai who had successfully built a wooden bicycle that held up well.  At
> this time also Yamaha had visited America  visiting the Mason & Hamlin
and
> Chickering factories. He figured that anyone who could design with that
> much stability could design other things as well also.  He hired this
> fellow named Kawai to design his (Yamaha's' first piano).  I read
somewhere
> that the first piano was turned out in 1902 although the first year in
the
> atlas is 1917.  The first year he built 2.  In 1904 he sent over an
> instrument for the St. Louis Worlds Fair where he received an honorary
> prize.  Before 1914 he was building 10,000 reed organ a year and began
> producing the Butterfly brand of harmonicas.  He got a boost in sale for
> these because of Hohner harmonicas were made in Germany.  Unfortunately
> Torakuso died in 1916 and maybe Kawai did not get along with whoever took
> over controls.  The reed organ business continued independently with
pianos
> until 1927 when Kawai left Yamaha to start his own company building,
guess
> what, pianos and reed organs).  Yamaha went through several other design
> changes as they lured German engineers (Bechstein) with huge amounts of
> money to redesign them again in 1930.  WW11 pretty well destroyed
> everything but caused all new factories and machinery to be built which
was
> probably an advantage.  In 1947 the first pianos, harmonicas, and reed
> organs started going again as well as the first motorcycles in 1955. 
> Success continues.
> > James Grebe
> RPT from St. Louis
> pianoman@inlink.com