Sales persons

[Les Smith]

On Mon, 17 Nov 1997, Delwin D Fandrich wrote:

> The salesman, however, was not quite ready to give up. When asked by my 
> client why there was such a long space between the end of the keys and
> the tuning pins he smoothly explained that this was a special type of
> instrument of which only a few  were built. The extra space was a tuned
> acoustic chamber that enhanced the bass notes of the piano, making them
> sound much longer than they actually were. He explained that for this
> acoustic chamber to work properly, the piano really needed to be in a
> full concert hall -- the sound couldn't possibly develop fully in the
> small confines of the store. He also explained that I might never have
> seen one before because they were so rare. Steinway only built a couple
> of them, you see, because that special tuned acoustic chamber added so
> much to the cost that it wasn't really practical to continue building
> them. 

Another mystery cleared up! I always wondered why some technicians, when
they encountered one of these specially-built Steinways in the field,
would see fit to rip out the after-market player actions one frequently
found installed in such pianos. Now I know it was because they knew that
if the "specially tuned acoustic chamber" was to function as Steinway in-
tended, it had to be empty. Fortunately, the informed technician who did
the removal frequently volunteered to dispose of the useless player action
for free, much to the relief of the piano's owner. One can only hope that
on the way to toss it at the dump he might have been able to think of the
name of a player technician who might be able to use it for parts.

Although we might be inclined to smile at such stories, the sad reality is
that such people reflect poorly on us all. About all we can do is to let
such tales strengthen our resolve to conduct our own businesses in as hon-
est and straight-foward manner as possible. Given time, cream really DOES
rise to the top! If unconvinced, just leaf through your Pierce Piano Atlas
and look at the names of all the companies which no longer exist today,
because they decided to put short-term profits ahead of solid, long-term
business considerations. Scary, huh? Even scarier, the salesman Del de- 
scribed probably went on to become an influential politician!

Les Smith
lessmith@buffnet.net