Alternative materials comment

[harvey]

>From Ralph Martin, 4/12/98, in part:
"I believe that Kawai built a grand with  case built of plexiglass many
years ago for Steve Allen. I'm relying on an aging memory here so maybe
some of the other folks on the list may remember the piano. I believe
that Kawai was the first to do this, I'm sure Don (Mannino) will be able
to furnish some feed-back on this. Do I remember correctly, Don?"

I don't remember seeing a response from this, from Mannino or anyone else.
Kawai built a Plexiglas piano to sell (to anyone). Steve Allen may have
one, or since he was doing Kawai promos at the time, may have "posed" with
one. Either way, they were on the price list for anyone with the $$$. No, I
don't remember how many dollars, retail or otherwise, but certainly one
could have purchased a *much* larger regular piano -- like maybe a concert
grand -- and maybe had some change left over.

They were essentially a (then) KG-3 in a different wrapper. Spiro Agnew
(remember him?) purchased one for his home in Palm Springs. When I
attempted to help the movers load that piano, I found out how much this
material weighs. I was simply going to move the bench (also plexi) out of
the way for them. Now I know why there were so many movers that day!

The S. Agnew part brings up another story about acoustics, but I promised
myself to make my responses brief.



Jim Harvey
harvey@greenwood.net
Greenwood (n): the largest city in South Carolina WITHOUT an Interstate