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Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to tell you about five misleading piano terms. You may have heard some of these terms and wondered what they mean. They may sound scary and you want to know more about them. Let’s dive right in!

The first term we are going to discuss is “Gray Market Pianos”.

When you hear this term, it sounds pretty foreboding, almost like it is something illegal! Truth be known, gray market is a term coined by Yamaha North America. Yamaha North America is the sole distributor of Yamaha pianos on our continent. Every new Yamaha piano that is sold in North America must go through this corporation. Yamaha North America is separate from Yamaha International.

Japanese culture doesn’t like used things so much. As a result, there’s a glut of gently used Yamaha pianos in Japan that nobody wants to buy. Enterprising business people refurbish the pianos and then redistribute them in the United States as used Yamaha pianos. Naturally, Yamaha North America is not too happy about this because it cuts into their market. They do everything they can to try to squash it.

What are some of the things they say about them? There is certainly some truth to their claims! Yamaha wasn’t really an export company until the 1970’s. When you are talking about really old Yamaha pianos, you might wonder if they were made to withstand a wide range of climates. At one point, they weren’t exporting pianos much at all. So, this could be an issue with extremely old Yamaha pianos.

Yamaha talks about the “climatization” of their pianos for the North American environment. Here in Orange County we are about ten miles from the beach. The beach is about ten degrees cooler and probably has about 20% higher humidity than what we have here. That is just ten miles away! Go an hour and a half inland and you could be in the hot desert or cool mountains. There are many climates right around us!

What about the whole North American climate? It is kind of funny to say that pianos are climatized for North America because the climates are so diverse. Any late model Yamaha, from the 1970s and beyond, are made to handle climates all around the world.

What is another problem with buying gray market Yamahas? If a technician is ordering parts for a Yamaha piano and they provide the serial number to Yamaha and it doesn’t match one they sold, they won’t sell the parts. Is that a big problem? Not necessarily. There could be other serial numbers that could be referenced in order to get the parts. Also, Yamaha is not the only parts manufacturer and their parts aren’t so unusual. So, there are parts available from Abel, Renner, and other companies that can be a good fit. You just need to be aware that this is what gray market is all about. Should you be concerned? Possibly, if it is an older Yamaha, but otherwise you should be in good shape.

Another similar parallel comes from Steinway. Steinway’s biggest competition you’d think would be Yamaha, Kawai, or Bösendorfer.

The biggest competition Steinway has is used Steinway.

Why? When you go to a Steinway store you see an $80,000 piano. When you look on the used market you see similar Steinways for half the price or even less. This is obviously a big concern for Steinway. They have coined a term called, “Steinwas” claiming that if you have a Steinway piano and one or more parts on the piano were not made by them, it’s no longer a Steinway piano. Is there truth to this? Yes and no. Sometimes it can be true. There is nothing more crushing than to see badly restored Steinway pianos tarnishing their good name. I applaud them for trying to keep that high standard! However, there are also stupendous rebuilders of Steinway pianos. Steinway does rebuild pianos but they can only do a limited number of rebuilds every year. For all those used Steinway that have been made for over a hundred years, there are really high-quality rebuilders out there. They may choose to use Steinway parts, and you might wonder why they would use any other parts in the restoration. To save a few bucks here and there? Not really. I can imagine there might be a few inexperienced rebuilders who think they can get away with using a cheaper part. But the extra labor it would take to make that part work can negate any savings by selecting the wrong part. The real reason why a rebuilder would use different parts is that Steinway is not a parts builder. In fact, the only parts they have on hand are for the pianos they are currently building.

On a side note, Steinway pianos manufactured in Germany have always utilized action parts manufactured by the German company Renner. Steinway recently bought Renner Corporation.

Imagine a Steinway M from the 1920s that needs a new set of hammers. An inexperienced rebuilder might just order the set from Steinway thinking it has to be right. However, the specifications of Steinway pianos vary over the years. It may or may not be the exact right weight and geometry for a specific piano from the past that you are trying to rebuild. The good news is that there are many companies that make very fine parts. Renner and Abel (to mention just two companies) make great hammers. There are a number of companies that make great piano parts.

The critical thing is using the right part for a specific piano.

Sometimes you go into a store and you wonder about a piano and the salesperson might tout a piano with an “all-spruce soundboard”. You probably think that spruce is great. In reality, “all-spruce” is a clever way of not indicating to you that the soundboard is not a solid spruce soundboard, which is the preferred board for high-quality pianos.

What is important is to have a “Solid Spruce Soundboard”.

A soundboard may be, “all-spruce” but utilizing laminated wood which is simply plywood. What is wrong with that? First, let’s talk about the benefits of laminated soundboards. A laminated board is much, much more durable just like plywood is less likely to crack than solid wood. Why is that? Because the grains are put layer upon layer crossing each other with cement between. It is almost impossible for a crack to go through because each layer of wood is positioned at 90-degree angles to one another.

A laminated soundboard is stronger than a solid spruce soundboard.

The bad news is that laminated soundboards lack the rich tone of high quality, solid spruce soundboards. The vibrations are not as rich and complex. You’re better off with a solid board unless you live in a harsh climate. If you hear the term, “all-spruce”, you now understand the implications.

Another term you’ve probably seen is the “Going Out of Business Piano Sale”.

Many of these are legitimate. When you consider that in 2005 there were over 1,200 piano stores in the United States, and today there are only around 150, you can see that many stores have actually gone out of business. However, this is the way it generally works. A store can’t keep running with depleting inventory and have enough money to cover operating expenses. When they get down to two pianos, how could that possibly work? It can’t. Usually, a going out of business sale entails partnering with another store that feeds additional inventory so their store can function as they sell out their inventory. There is a lot of hype that goes into these sales and sometimes they are very successful with tremendous amounts of promotion. It is not necessarily a bad place to buy a piano. But you should be aware that the sale may not be as desperate a situation as it appears to be. Worse yet, sometimes you see people taking advantage of these situations. A store might do a going out of business sale for months or even years! Sometimes they will even change names and do it all again. I’ve seen it happen and it gives a bad name to the whole piano industry.

Lastly, and related to this, are the famous college piano sales.

You’ll see these all the time. You might wonder how they have so many used pianos to sell. You might remember a similar sale just last year. Here’s how it works. College piano sales are a partnership among a manufacturer, a store, a distributor, and a finance company. They go to a school and offer to put several free pianos in the school for a year in exchange for a sale the following year that is promoted to the entire mailing list of the college or university. It can make for a very potent event.

The vast majority of the pianos at college sales do not usually belong to the college.

This is actually a good thing! If you’ve ever seen what school pianos look like, they are usually thrashed! Because they get used so much, the cases get beaten up and the pianos can be worn out. Indeed, the pianos at college sales have been there for just a year, usually kept in studios, not in practice rooms. These are the college pianos that are sold at these events. That just might be a handful of pianos. Yet, you have a whole school full of dozens of pianos that come from a store who is trying to capitalize on the event by selling a wide range of inventory to the staff, students, and alumni of the school. Is it a good place to buy a piano? Possibly. If you know exactly what you want and you don’t want to go through the negotiation process, it is a fine fit. However, it is definitely not the place to go if you want to try out pianos and have any kind of relaxed way of exploring different instruments for yourself. It is a high pressure, quick, know what you want, here is the price, and buy it situation. While it is not completely deceptive, you should understand what it is. It is mostly a good situation since you are not buying abused college pianos.

Those are five things that are not what they appear to be. I hope this has been helpful for you. If any of you are piano shopping or have piano questions, LivingPianos.com is always here as a resource for you. Thank you so much for joining me, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store.

949-244-3729
info@LivingPianos.com

Hello, this is Robert Estrin from LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store. The question today is, “Can an out of tune piano have more sustain than a piano that is perfectly tuned?” The simple answer to this question is, believe it or not, yes! Here is an explanation of how and why this is.

If you look inside a piano you know that all the notes have more than one string except on the lowest notes. Most notes have three strings. If you know something about the acoustics of vibrating strings, you understand that if they are vibrating perfectly with one another you’ll get a certain level of sustain. But if one string is just ever-so-slightly out of tune, there will be a slow wave created. If that slow wave is about the same length of time or slightly longer than the sustain of that note, it will actually enhance the sustain of the note more than if it was absolutely dead-on in pitch!

I once talked to a piano tuner who claimed that they purposely de-tuned the piano precisely to get the maximum amount of sustain. I’ve talked to other piano tuners who said that this was total nonsense! My feeling is this: striving to tune a piano is hard enough. Once it is in tune, it is going out of tune little by little. Even if you tried to make the piano perfectly in tune, with every unison phase locked in perfect tune where they didn’t drift at all, in a very short amount of time, some of the notes will still drift slightly sharp or more likely flat. This would cause that slight detuning which could add sustain as long as the tuning doesn’t become so great that the wave cycle is shorter than the length the note sustains naturally.

Indeed, a slightly out of tune piano where the wave cycle is less than the sustain of the notes will sustain longer than a perfectly in tune piano. However, I wouldn’t try to de-tune your piano to get this effect. Believe me, it will de-tune itself soon enough just from playing it! Thanks for all the great questions and keep them coming in to:

info@LivingPianos.com
Your Online Piano Store.
949-244-3729

If you have looked for used Yamaha pianos – you may have run into this term before. If you have ever searched for the term “gray market Yamaha pianos” online you will find a ton of different opinions about what it means. It’s my goal to simply provide some information from my experience to anyone who is curious about buying or learning about what this means.

The simple answer is that Yamaha pianos imported directly from Japan are sometimes referred to as gray market pianos. Yamaha pianos sold through retailers in the United States are actually imported into this country by a company called Yamaha North America. Yamaha North America is actually a separate company from Yamaha. They are the sole importer of Yamaha pianos into the United States, and because of this, their interest is to protect their market as much as possible. In fact they, they are undoubtedly the ones who initially coined the term “gray market pianos”. You can read their take on what grey market pianos are on their website:

http://www.yamaha.com/ussub/piano/serialnumberlookup.html

In other words: If you buy a piano from a private seller and the piano was not sold through Yamaha North America, it could be termed a gray market piano. Indeed there is a cottage industry of people importing old Yamaha pianos from Japan, refurbishing them and selling them in the United States.

Yamaha North America warns customers about these pianos.

The biggest concern is the age of the piano. Yamaha has continually improved design, manufacturing, and materials of their pianos over the decades. Some of the old pianos they produced were not of the high standard people expect of the largest piano manufacturer in the world. Since Yamaha North America has no control over these instruments, they caution people about them to avoid being associated with sub-standard pianos being sold by some independent importers.

Another issue that is raised is the climatization of the pianos for the North American market. What is the climate of North America? I know that where I live in Southern California has a dramatically different climate than 10 miles away at the beach, or 10 miles inland in the high desert. Indeed, early on before Yamaha became a global music company their pianos were not produced with the seasoned woods to withstand a wide range of climates. However, Yamaha pianos have been produced on a high level for export certainly since the late 1970’s at least. So, this is only a concern with older Yamaha pianos.

Yamaha North America also warns about the availability of parts for “gray market pianos”. They say they will not provide parts for these pianos and require the serial number to acquire parts. The truth is, piano parts are standard and there are countless companies making high-quality parts for almost any modern piano.

So what is the deal with a gray market piano? If you are looking at a relatively recently built Yamaha piano, you should be just fine. Most of the Yamaha pianos sold in Japan are pretty much the same as the ones sold in America. Any skilled technician who can handle a Yamaha American piano will have no problems servicing a later model Japanese market Yamaha piano; the parts and labor are the same.

So while you should be aware of what is termed, “Yamaha gray market pianos”, if you are looking at a later model Yamaha within the time frame of Yamaha North America, there is probably nothing to worry about.

Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin: Robert@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729

Whether you are worried about buying an old piano or only want to buy a vintage piano, there is a lot of information floating out there online when it comes to older instruments and a lot of it can be hard to sort through. Today we are going to talk about the good and the bad when it comes to buying older pianos.

Unlike people, pianos don’t age unless acted upon by an outside force. In the case of pianos, it’s their environment or the amount they are played that will age them. Upkeep is the most important part of maintaining your piano and giving it a long lifespan. Occasionally, there are pianos 50-100 years old with almost no wear or tear because they were barely played, kept in a very stable environment and kept in tune. It’s like opening a time capsule – the pianos are almost like new off the showroom floor yet from a different era!

On the flipside, there are pianos that aren’t even ten years old that are in need of major repairs because of the way they were cared for. Pianos which have been subjected to constant use in schools and hotels, pianos that are never tuned, and instruments subjected to desert or ocean environments are some examples. Sometimes pianos have hot air ducts below or behind them destroying soundboards. Even having direct sunlight stream on the piano all day can do substantial damage in a short amount of time.

The age of a piano has little to do with the condition of the instrument.

It’s all about the environment and how it has been cared for.

Knowing that, you will need to do a little detective work when it comes to the used piano market. Why would you want to go that route?

The biggest reason most people look to used pianos is to get higher line instruments for far less money. You can get much more value for your dollar when buying used pianos versus new ones – especially when it comes to higher line pianos such as Steinway and European instruments. You may be able to afford a top-tier used piano in good condition for the same price as a new Chinese piano!

Pianos all have distinct personalities and even new pianos can differ greatly from one-another. Buying an older instrument that has been restored – assuming the work has been done by expert technicians and rebuilders – doesn’t necessarily propose different risks from buying a new piano. In fact, new pianos often carry larger risks than time-tested instruments because if there is going to be a major problem with manufacturing or materials you’ll usually discover this within the first year or two of owning a piano. Is this a big risk? No, but it’s something to be aware of.

Another significant reason people look to used pianos instead of new instruments is because there is a scarcity of American and European pianos being built today. Consider 100 years ago there were over 1,800 companies making pianos in the United States. Last year there were only 1,400 pianos built in North America! While Asian production pianos have proliferated the market at a fraction of the cost of the hand-made pianos, they don’t provide the same level of performance or longevity of the top-tier instrument from years past.

The history of an older piano is the most important tool you have in determining if it’s worth your time. You don’t need a rich and detailed report on every aspect of the instrument, but doing a little detective work can tell you a lot about the history of a piano with simple observation if you know what to look for. If you are unsure about the piano, you could have a piano technician or piano expert take a look at it for you. A little information and a concerning eye could save you thousands of dollars in potential repairs.

So while you shouldn’t be afraid of older pianos, you should be aware of the inherent risks involved with buying any piano. It’s important that you understand what you are getting and know the history of the piano you’re interested in. If you’re not experienced in what to look for when determining the value or condition of a piano than it might be a good idea to bring a technician along with you or buy from a reputable dealer instead of taking a risk with a piano from a private party.

Thanks again for joining us here at Living Pianos. If you have any questions or comments about this topic or any topic at all please contact us directly: Info@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729

So What Are the Best Piano Brands?

The country of origin is often the best indicator of the quality of pianos. Since piano production began in Germany and the United States, these represent the very best piano brands.

The United States only has 3 manufacturers left although there used to be hundreds of piano companies building in America. Today we have only:

Steinway

 

 

Steinway makes about 2500 pianos a year

 

 

 

Mason & Hamlin

 

 

Mason & Hamlin builds only 250 pianos per year

 

 

 

 

 

Charles Walter

 

 

Charles Walter is a relative newcomer which builds only about 65 pianos each year.

 

 

 

 

 

The best European pianos come primarily from Germany:

Bechstein

Bluthner

Bosendorfer (from Austria)

Fazioli (from Italy)

The Eastern European pianos are not as refined but offer excellent value:

Petrof/Weinbach

(The same company produces both pianos.)

Estonia

Japan makes the best Asian production pianos. There are 2 companies which are the largest and second largest manufacturers of pianos in the world:

Yamaha

Kawai

Both companies have factories throughout Asia (not just in Japan) and the best pianos they build are made in Japan. They offer everything from budget instruments to hand-made pianos rivaling the best German and American pianos.

Korea has been making pianos for quite some time. While not as refined as the Japanese pianos, they continually improve. There are 2 Korean piano manufactures both of which have factories in other countries:

Samick

Young Chang

Samick sells pianos under many different brand names including Kohler and Campbell, Knabe, Sohmer, Pramberger, Remington and many more. These are referred to as “stencil pianos” since the original manufacturer is either out of business or it is a made up name. Young Chang sells pianos under the Weber name.

Best Piano Brands YouTube Video

Best Piano Brands