Let's look at why there seems to be a cult following around Steinway. Artists who play every other instrument except piano, play their own instrument. The trumpet player, the violinist, the cellist all take their instruments with them even if (as in the cast of the cellist) they have to purchase an airline ticket for the instrument. They always play their instrument with which they are very familiar. Pianists, have to play whatever is there. This does bring on lots of angst. When they get to the venue they are comforted by seeing something familiar. If it is a Steinway that starts their being at ease. It might be a great Steinway, or it might be a dreadful one, but at least it is familiar. We had an artist come here last summer that when he found out that our Steinway was being rebuilt and that he would have to play a Yamaha he was quite unhappy. When the date finally arrived for his performance he changed to a smaller recital hall here that has a Steinway B rather than the Yamaha CFIIIS. Familiarity won out over the superior piano. After a few decades of this, Steinway becomes the comfort food for a very apprehensive performer. I guess we shouldn't be surprised that this has developed. If there had been more companies promoting their concert instruments there might be more diversity but Steinway has won the familiarity war. It will take any other manufacturer a lot of effort to put a dent in their dominance in that market. They are the market leader in this area. They are not the market leader in total number of units sold, but in the concert/recital venues, they own it. That does not necessarily make them the best piano, they just won the concert venue playoffs. dave _________________________ David M. Porritt, RPT Meadows School of the Arts Southern Methodist University 6101 Bishop Dallas, TX 75275 dporritt at smu.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut_ptg.org/attachments/20090417/bbab33d9/attachment.html>
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