PTG Article/reply

[Mike Swendsen]

Excellent article, I wish I had said it.   I think that you and possibly
Charles Walter are the only two who have tried to redefine excellence in
the American Piano industry.  It(the American Piano Industry) can't be
insulated from the world, even by (maybe especially by) extra duties and
tarrifs to help it become more competative.  That has been tried here in
Canada and elsewhere in the world, all it does is make maufacturers
complacent, and then they die.
There are lots of good ideas that haven't even been tried or thought of,
in the design and manufacture of pianos.  It's time to rip off the
blinders and get moving again.
C. Mike Swendsen RPT

Delwin D Fandrich wrote:
> 
> Ralph,
> 
> A few months ago I wrote an article for my column titled “If It Ain’t
> Broke, Break It.” I don’t think that either of the two people who
> actually read that article were “in the industry.” There is a strong
> belief—wish?—that things really can go on just as they have for decades.
> If we can just tighten up our "quality" a little bit, if we can just
> build them a little cheaper, we can make it.
> 
> In that article I drew a parallel between the auto industry and the
> piano industry. If you’ll recall, the US auto industry faced a similar
> dilemma in the seventies and eighties. Detroit’s cars were not selling
> well against the products being imported from Japan, Germany and Sweden.
> They tried “Badge Engineering” with the same old bodies, the  same old
> engines and the same old chassis but with lots of bright and shiny trim.
> It didn’t work. They tried putting new bodies and old engines on old
> chassis and they called them new models. That didn’t work either. Then
> they tried putting new bodies and old engines on new chassis and again
> they called them all new models. Still didn’t work. And finally, when
> none of those efforts “drove the imports back into the sea,” they
> actually tried building better cars. Guess what? It’s working.
> 
> (And, by the way, like the car market of the seventies and eighties, I
> don’t think the piano market is dying so much as it’s being killed off.
> But that’s another story...)
> 
> It’s not just that the Asians (or the Europeans) are “building a damn
> good piano.” They are good, but they aren’t perfect—they also have their
> areas of vulnerability. Nor is it that Asian piano companies are
> successful because their pianos are “cheap.” Have you priced a Yamaha
> lately? It’s just that we haven’t quite gotten the picture yet. If we
> want to gain back our share of the market, we’re going to have to fight
> for it. We’re going to have to stop letting them define the battleground
> and start shaping it to suit ourselves. We’re going to have to build
> better pianos.
> 
> A few years ago I did some work for a dealer that had just started
> selling Sohmer pianos. In the first shipment there were only 42”
> consoles and a few grands. Being a curious sort, I examined carefully
> how they were built and, of course, measured their string scales. In the
> second shipment, there were a couple of 46” pianos that were described
> as follows (and I quote from a brochure printed not long before they
> went out of business): “As a professional upright, it offers greater
> string length and tonal volume.” The problem was that in reality they
> sounded a lot like the consoles. So, out came the measuring tools and
> guess what? The stringing scale of the studio was identical to that of
> the console with the exception of the back scale in the bass section—the
> tail sections of the bass strings were a bit longer. The speaking
> lengths were identical throughout. To “design” the studio they had
> simply added a couple of inches to the bottom of the plate and back
> structure. It did help the bass, but not by much. Their sales rep never
> could quite understand why that great “design” wasn’t accepted by the
> consumers who would look at it and then buy a Yamaha. (Yes, I know,
> Sohmer wasn’t the only company to “design” pianos that way. It didn’t
> work any better on that one, either.) Were actually going to have to
> build better sounding pianos.
> 
> Of course you’re right, it’s going to take more than design and
> construction—though it would be nice to see some fresh design and
> construction ideas. But, that’s the easy part. (Well, now it is...) And
> it’s certainly going to take more than redoing some moldings and some
> hardware so a 1930’s design can be called a new model. That may have
> worked in the fifties, sixties and seventies. It won’t work today.
> (Actually, it didn't work then either, but the consequences didn't catch
> up quite as fast.)
> 
> It’s going to take a whole fresh attitude, starting from the top and
> working its way down. Someone who really understands the industry, the
> market and the competition is going to have sit down and accurately
> assess where their current products fit into that mix. (That’s not going
> to be as easy as it sounds) They’ll have to decide what products they
> will need to regain competitiveness. They will have to be able to form a
> plan, find and hire the right people, and to make an unshakable
> commitment to carrying out that plan. Someone is going to have to
> determine that it is good business to build competitive pianos.
> Unfortunately, I’m not sure there are all that many around who realize
> that the old ways aren’t ever going to work again and that the old
> designs can’t be fixed enough to get by any more. They may not seem
> broke, but they are.
> 
> The good part is that once the decision is made to go ahead, it won't
> take all that long or cost all that much to pull it off.
> Ah, well...
> 
> ddf

-- 
C. Mike Swendsen
my Homepage is <http://www.cadvision.com/swendsec/spiano.html>