[CAUT] Voicing method/analogy

[Jeff Tanner]

On Jun 1, 2007, at 8:10 AM, Don wrote:

> I've been told that Steinway offered to provide a piano where ever the
> performer was playing. In return the artist was to demand a  
> Steinway piano
> and nothing else would be "good enough".

I think we've all heard some pretty tall tale-telling over the years  
from Yamaha and Kawai dealers, too, so marketing is a tool that  
everyone uses.

But, like Ric, I can't accept the theory that the "Steinway sound" is  
the dominant preference thanks to clever marketing.  Steinway has  
always integrated feedback from performers into the piano making  
process.  They continue to do that today.  I think they are  
successful because they build an instrument that is extremely  
durable, capable of anything any performer is capable of, and is more  
versatile, that can be voiced in so many different directions to suit  
so many different musical tastes.

Something that has also helped is that the company has been  
profitable for 150 years, while others have struggled, and just  
disappeared.  The company, as a company, is dependable.  Yes, Piano  
Disk has had Mason & Hamlin back in production for several years and  
sales are good.  Yes, Gibson is building Baldwin pianos (who knows  
about sales? I don't know of a Baldwin dealership I can drive to in a  
day's time).  SMC is reintegrating the old Baltimore scales back into  
the Knabe, and it will be built in the US.  Others have just become  
names owned by the next new buyer, and stuck on the fallboard of  
another piano shaped product built in China.  But Steinway has always  
been there, right there in the same place, and the American public  
will reward that dependability.

European makes?  They are wonderful pianos.  But you don't see enough  
of them here to make a statement.  As good as they are, what are the  
artists preferring in Europe?  Steinway presence is strong because  
the company is profitable enough to market the product all over the  
world.  That's just good business.  And, after all, in the end, it is  
business.  Survival of the fittest.

So, perhaps there is some natural selection involved.  But I doubt it  
can all be attributed to the Steinway marketing department.

Even if it were, what's wrong with it?  It's a pretty darn good  
sound, me thinks.


Jeff Tanner, RPT
University of South Carolina



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