I posted three videos tonight that were really nice and thought I would share them with you.
The first one is about Estonia Pianos
This is from Seth who has a cool video also his website is www.SethRye.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V91wxDTRmAM
And of course the famous Rosemary Bailey at www.RosemaryBaileyMusic.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKKgHKfNnyY
Thanks for being patient with the website as we start the major MAJOR changes.
Ric Overton
Of all of the things in the piano industry, I love piano teachers. I know, I know, I love the manufacturers, piano builders, tuners, technicians, artists, etc. but, teachers are the key to our industry.
Heres some facts. Piano teachers generally speaking have the love and compassion needed to take kids into the next level. They have to deal with young men and young women as they come into and out of the most important parts of thier lives on a much more personal basis than the average teacher.
As a child is going through the loss of a loved one, divorce of their parents, not to mention puberty and growing into young men and young women. Then theres school, school functions girlfriends, boyfriends, best freinds, soccer, football, cheerleaders and such. All the while they are doing their very best to work with the children through the situations.
Piano teachers are teaching our kids to play the piano but also are adding to thier imaginations. Most people dont realize that learning to play a musical instrument helps kids increase their ability to learn.
I have had a lot of pleasure teaching adults. Like teachers that teach kids I have listened to stories about everything from marriage problems to kid problems and financial problems and every possible topic in between and loved every minute of it.
Teaching adults to play has been very rewarding because they are learning to do something they have wanted to do all of their lives and never had a chance. Take for example one student that I had who was in his early 70’s and had never played before. When he played the first bars of When the
Saints Go Marchin In, you would have thought he had just won a lottery. Yet, he had it in him all along and simply needed an avenue and permission to get it out.
At the Piano Outlet in Nipomo, Ca. I have begun classes that are for adults and another teacher is teaching the children. If you are interested in joining one of our classes or are interested in learning on line, please contact me and I will get you into one of our classes.
Hope to see you soon.
Ric
posted by Ric Overton of www.PianoSD.com via www.MaxMorganDesign.com
I was devastated to learn about the tornado in Joplin, Mo. this morning. Very tragic news indeed and our hearts and prayers go out to the fine folks of Missouri this morning.
As promised I wanted to continue my discussion on the difference in pianos. On the last blog we talked about China and the other Asian pianos. While I did not go into depth on the post about these pianos I spoke directly to tone characteristics. I wanted to explain a few thoughts.
Pianos coming from Asia are often somewhat brighter and more dynamic in sound presentation which is fine. I find it akin to taking the stereo and pulling the bass out and turning the treble all the way up leaving the sound to be somewhat “thin” and not full bodied. Many piano manufacturers have addressed this problem. Pearl River for one has hired Lothar Tomar of Bechstein Pianos to redesign thier pianos and what has happened as a result is that the Pearl River pianos of today tend to have a more full bodied tone and more identifiable sound characteristic than before. Brodmann for another has also accomplished this. Delivering a brighter tone but with more depth and character than most of its counterparts.
As we move to the United States we have to take a step back and look at the tragic history of piano building and where we are today. The Pierce Piano Atlas is filled with manufacturers from the U.S. who are no longer in business or are 100% built in China, Indonesia or Japan. I find this tragic, not from the stand point that the Asian influence is inferior, but, from the aspect that the employees no longer have jobs and their knowledge has left our industry.
We only have three piano manufacturers left in the United States that are recognizable. The first and most obvious, of course, is Steinway. While Steinway and Sons continues to be built in New York, as always, they also produce two other piano lines. Those lines are Boston from Japan and Essex from China. While they say that they are built to their own specifications, this writer has some doubts to that claim.
Mason and Hamlin is another piano company that is a very celebrated piano among pianist. Mason and Hamlin has a somewhat more bright and clearer tone than its counterparts and is a fine instrument. There is some debate as to how much of the piano is actually built in the United States and how much comes from “world sources” they do continue to build very fine pianos right here in the U.S.
Lastly, I have to mention Charles Walter. This is a very classy act. although they are not as celbrated or as heralded as its two competitors, it is still a very nice piano. Somewhat more mellow in tone and never really known for their grand pianos although they do have a couple in their offerings.
As you look at the line up it is very sad to see that in a country as large and as musically influential as the United States we are unable to support more than three piano companies.
I believe its time for a change and that we, as a music community, should put our heads together and find a way to compete internationally with other piano manufacturers.
I will continue this discussion on tone character in US pianos soon.
Thanks again
Ric
posted by Ric Overton of www.PianoSD.com via www.MaxMorganDesign.com
Russell Kassman, a dear friend of R Kassman Pianos in Berkely, Ca. is in Germany and was nice enough to put in a post on the world famous www.PianoWorld.comabout his trip to Germany. I was so jealous but, after reminding myself how beautiful Nipomo, Ca. is I decided to be satisfied with my present surroundings and live vicariously through his experiences in Germany. I contacted him via www.Facebook.com, of course, and asked his permission to re post his report of his trip to the home of pianos. Here it is-via R Kassman Pianos, Berkely, Ca www.RKassman.com
Repost from www.PianoWorld.com
)I also played (for several hours) three Steingraeber Concert Grands and selected one to replace the one we just sold to composer Gordon Getty. The new one I selected is a fabulous instrument with majestic power and a depth of tone like the Grand Canyon. I am really excited about this instrument, BUT I am doing cartwheels about another piano I bought! During my “testing time”, two factory workers rolled in a 232 (7’6″) that had just come from being used for a recording. I sat down to try it and COULD NOT pull myself away from that piano for nearly one hour. IT IS FABULOUS. After begging, pleading, and SEVERAL glasses of Schnapps, I got Udo Steingraeber to agree to sell it to me. Anyone who wants to hear one of the finest pianos I have EVER played in my many years should either go on the PW Tour and ask Udo to play Russell’s D-232 or you can beat a path to Berkeley when it arrives.
Now, on to the Black Forest area tomorrow morning for a visit to Sauter Pianos. Wow, what a great trip but my Mastercard is screaming!
and now if I wasnt jealous enough – Post from Sauter from www.PianoWorld.com
The next morning, a lite mist was over the valley when Uli picked me up from the hotel and we headed to the factory a few minutes up the road. My goal was to just take pictures of two pianos I already have on order for customers so that I could show them the progress and to try to get out of town without tripling my debt. Yeah, right, sure.
While going from the office area to the main factory, there was a piano sitting in the factory concert area that stopped me dead in my tracks. True, it was the look of the piano that set my heart pacing, but when I sat down to it, I was left breathless by the depth and quality of sound. While I am lucky to represent many fine piano makers, and several are of comparable quality standard, I can’t think of any that equals Sauter in its ability to make uprights that equal the musicality of most grands. Add to that the stunning quality of the furniture and you have an unbeatable combination.
This piano is called a “PURE”, and it’s cabinet was designed by Peter Maly, the “guru” of contemporary furniture design. It has a polished ebony background and the keyframe/keybed/fallboard is in polished Zambrano. Now, I had never seen or heard of Zembrano before, but Uli indicated it is in the Rosewood family. But really, saying it is like Rosewood is like saying wine is like grape juice. I am posting pictures on our FACEBOOK PAGE : LINK HERE – Scroll down to the end of the FB post for the pics.
Well, I already have a great selection of Sauter uprights in my shop, with a few on order, so I began to plot what I could possibly do to get this one. I continued on my factory tour, taking pictures of my customer’s pianos, and plotting my next move on the Zambrano upright. Luckily, later that day, I was able to catch Uli in a well planned trap.
You see, over the years I have visited the area quite a bit. And Uli knows that I won’t leave Tuttlingen without a visit to this one farmer who makes a combination apple/pear schnapps that you can buy. Oh Wait, YOU can’t buy it but I did :P. So, after lunch that is exactly where we headed. To my surprise, the farmer now has a sort of tasting room, and has added several other versions of his ware, including an “herb schnapps” which has a sort of rosemary/thyme flavor, a sort of anise schnapps, and several others – whose names I can’t remember for reasons better left untold (aka too much tasting).
So, it was in this tasting room that I decided to make my move with Ulrich, and I convinced him to let me buy this piano now, with the agreement that if I haven’t sold it by NAMM, I will let him use it for the display in January. Heheh, I guess you could say yet another German piano maker has fallen into my schnapps trap.
Together with the pianos I bought at Steingraeber, we are going to have a fantastic collection going into summer and fall. But, all that tough negotiating (read schnapps drinking) made me feel I deserved a bit of a vacation, so I headed to Zurich (one hour from Tuttlingen) and got on a plane for Barcelona – and on the beach I sit, writing this and drinking – I’ll bet you’re thinking Schnapps – no way, Sangria!
Unfortunately, all of this ends on Monday when I have to fly back home to San Francisco to open the store on Tuesday, and rejoin Weight Watchers Tuesday night. I hope all the PW members going on the European factory tour have as much fun as I have had. And take it from me, if you fall in love with a piano on your journey and want to find a way to bring it home with you, grab the factory owner and a bottle of Schnapps and see where things go!
The idea of having strings attached to another piece of wood that made sound had been around for years but the idea of having a keyboard was not truly developed until around the 1400’s. For the next 300 years (give or take a year or two), the harpsichord was the instrument that set the “bench mark” for keyboard instruments.
Sure, there were many other instruments that came and went, a small portable harpsichord, and variations on the harpsichord did come on the scene from time to time and their popularity came and went, but the harpsichord was the instrument that was to be the traditional instrument for many composers and artists to use not only for “pop” music but also for worship in local churches and houses of worship.
The idea of the harpsichord was that the hammers moved forward to the strings, the strings were then plucked as the hammer returned to its resting point. This was the standard sound that was heard but there were a few problems with this that necessitated a different technique in producing sound. One of the biggest problems was that the sound could not be made softer or louder. This made it very difficult to write music that allowed feeling.
Sometime in the early 1700’s, many people believe it was between 1707 to 1712 that a man by the name of Bartolommeo Cristofori came up with the idea that the hammer could move from its resting place, come forward and strike the string, and return to its resting place in one very fluid movement.
this action by renner actions
There were many more differences but, this was somewhat similar to the action that Christofori made in the early 1700’s. He referred to his new invention as “gravicembalo col piano e forte” which meant ” harpsichord with loud and soft”
This was the beginning of the piano as we know it today. Lots has changed since that day and many things have stayed the same.
I will continue this series to help inform you of the origins of my passion.
Ric Overton
posted by Ric Overton of www.PianoSD.com via www.MaxMorganDesign.com
I am very excited about having Mr. Sauter in our store today. He is a treasure in the piano industry. He has a very interesting opinion on piano building and is very understanding about what is taking place on the manufacturing end of the business. His insight has been quite valuable to me in my business.
The first time I played a Sauter was year before last when the Peter Maly was delivered to our store for inspection. From the first time I layed my hands on the keyboard I was in love. My preference has always been an entirely different type of piano. The action, tone, clarity, feel of the piano was something I was not prepared to experience. I did my due diligence as a business man and did my homework on the piano and the person and learned that this man is an icon not only in Germany but, around the world.
Tonight from 6-8 he will be here to answer questions and talk about pianos and the industry to give everyone a better more concise view of what is happening industry wide as far as manufacturing is concerned.
Love to get a chance to meet you.
Ric Overton
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