electronics replacing pianos?

[David Andersen]

Hold on, here, folks. With all due respect to you, Ric---my brother--- 
I just can't agree with you unless you put it way, way up in some  
future none of us will be able to recognize---like 300 years from  
now. Maybe.

  There is way, way too much pleasure, thrill, and emotion in the  
acoustic experience for it to die. You cannot---and I mean, CANNOT--- 
replace the total aural and body experience of being in the near- 
field sonic bubble of a fantastic piano.

I have been in some of the finest speaker arrays in the finest  
studios in the world, listening to A/B comparisons of the best  
digital reproductions of acoustic piano and actual piano, and there's  
just no contest. No contest between digital repro and the real piano  
recoreded, and no contest between the recorded piano and the real  
thing, standing with your head in the piano while it's being played.

That's why the entire pop music business went back acoustic after the  
massive machine flirtation beginning in the late 70's thru about  
1994...machines playing music, trying to emulate acoustic sounds,  
sound and feel like shit to your body, to something deep in you.

As machines rise and equal our linear intelligence, in 20-25 years,   
and the carbon-silicon relationship becomes infinitely more complex,  
I believe our ears, our whole beings, will crave and demand these  
beautiful acoustic, tactile, woody, body experiences.  I believe a  
reconfigured, flexible acoustic piano industry will thrive for the  
next 100 years, but that our craft needs to take a huge step up, and  
lead the entire piano business into an open, transparent, peer-based,  
respect-based paradigm, where people are told and come to expect the  
truth about pianos and piano service.

I also believe that predicting a grim, dystopian future is easy to  
do, but it casts kind of a pall over things; I'd rather, at this  
time, look for the strengths in our industry, now and up ahead. I'm  
committed to finding ways to foster the love of listening to and  
feeling the piano, and I think there's a bunch of indicators that  
tell me I have company in that.

That all said, I love the back and forth, Ric, and I'm glad you're  
thinking in challenging, wide-ranging ways, as always.
It's appreciated.

Best,

David Andersen


On Jan 3, 2007, at 11:14 AM, RicB wrote:

> As the electronic piano becomes more and more like its acoustic  
> ancestor the market will realize that they are cheaper, do not need  
> tuning, are portable and can do all kinds of things the acoustic  
> piano cant.  When that happens all the low end pianos will start to  
> disappear.... and the companies that make them as well.... the  
> knowledge base will be substantially weakened exasperating the  
> situation.  In the end.... not in my life time certainly... but  
> sooner or later... only a handfull of makers will survive as  
> specialty/nostalgic builders who only put out a few hundred world  
> wide each year.
>
> We are entering the age of virtual reality folks....  the  
> industrial revolution is going to look bleak compared to whats in  
> store for us in the comming 100 years. (if we can keep from blowing  
> ourselves to smithereens that is).
> But for all you acoustic lovers out there... and I am one of  
> them... we can all hope I am dead wrong. :)
>
>

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