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Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today, I’m going to talk about Steinway. What happened to Steinway? I’m going to give you 20 true or false statements, so get your pencil and paper ready! But first, I’m going to give a brief history of this venerable piano company. Of course, you all know Steinway, but I’m going to tell you some things you maybe don’t know about the company.

In 1850, Henry Steinweg, a German immigrant, witnessed a show put on by P.T. Barnum, and it featured a Chickering piano.

Chickering was a piano company going back to the 1820s in the United States. The show inspired him so much that they could barely drag him off the stage. A few years later, in 1853, he founded Steinway & Sons in New York, and the company remained under family ownership for generations. In 1880, Steinway opened a second factory in Hamburg, Germany. In 1931, the accelerated action was introduced, a new technology that caught the attention of many pianists. In 1936, Steinway introduced their patented diaphragmatic soundboard, which was a way of tapering the soundboard to produce the distinctive Steinway sound. Finally, in 1972, corporate ownership happened with CBS purchasing Steinway & Sons.

In 1992, Steinway introduced the Boston Piano brand. This is an OEM piano, designed by Steinway and produced in Japan by Kawai, with many Steinway elements—not the Steinway piano design, but many elements that Steinway specified in the pianos produced by Kawai in Japan. In 1995, Steinway merged with Selmer Industries, the makers of woodwind and brass instruments. Then, in 2001, Steinway introduced their Essex piano, made by Young Chang. But a few years later, in 2004, Young Chang suffered a bankruptcy. So in 2006, they started having the Essex produced in China by the world’s largest piano manufacturer, Pearl River, which is where they’re still made today.

In 2015, Steinway introduced Spirio, a player system that is only available in pianos that are built by Steinway and only in new Steinway pianos. This system introduced many innovative technologies. They took old recordings and digitized them so you can have your piano play Rubinstein when he was young, or things of that nature. And then, in 2019, they added a record function to Spirio.

Now get ready for the true or false statements!

A lot of these may be difficult, particularly this first one. And this is a very provocative statement:

1. Steinway makes a Mickey Mouse piano.

That sounds like blasphemy, doesn’t it? And some of you may wonder what I’m talking about here. Is it possibly true that Steinway makes a Mickey Mouse piano? This is TRUE This is a specially designed Steinway, and it is hand painted.

If you’ve got $375,000, you can get one of these ultra-limited edition Steinways for yourself. This isn’t the only limited edition Steinway they have, but it’s one of the more amusing ones. They have all sorts of different designer pianos that have extraordinarily high price tags. When you consider that even an entry-level Steinway baby grand is over $80,000, you can see how these limited runs would be expensive.

2. Steinway has stopped producing their accelerated action.

This has been something many people look for in Steinways. Is it possible they stopped producing their accelerated action? This is TRUE! Why would they stop making the accelerated action, which so many people like? Well, a lot of it comes down to the fact that Steinway has made every effort to make the pianos that are made in Hamburg similar to the pianos that are made in New York. For example, for many decades, they had the 5′ 10 1/2″ grand piano Model L made in New York and the exact same size Model O made in Hamburg. Well, they discontinued the L, so the O is now made in both factories. Also, a few years ago, they reintroduced the Model A in New York. For decades, the A was only made in Hamburg. So they have made improvements in their action and felt the accelerated action is no longer necessary. Pianists and technicians, I’d love to hear from all of you in the comments. How do you feel about the discontinuation of the accelerated action?

3. Steinway stopped making the 1098 studio piano.

This is TRUE. You can no longer buy a Steinway studio piano. They do not make any studio pianos.

4. Steinway is discontinuing all uprights made in New York.

This is TRUE. The K-52, the full-size upright, will no longer be made in New York. The only upright piano available from Steinway will be the K-132, manufactured in Hamburg, Germany.

5. Steinway has stopped making the Model S baby grand.

At 5′ 1″, the Model S is almost as expensive as the 5′ 7″ Model M, which is one of their most popular models. People have been saying that Steinway is no longer making the Model S. Is this true? This one is FALSE. The S is still in production, just as before. My personal piano is a Model S that my grandfather got for my father in the 1930s. We rebuilt it a number of years ago, and it’s still going strong! It’s a wonderful little baby grand.

6. Steinway moved their rebuilding off-site to Iowa.

Is this possible? They’ve always done their rebuilding in their New York factory. Did they really move their rebuilding to Iowa? This is TRUE. They are doing all of their rebuilds in Iowa. They ship their pin blocks and sound boards. In fact, that’s the only place where sound boards and pin blocks made by Steinway are available other than on new Steinway pianos made in New York and Hamburg.

7. Steinway refinishes their pianos in New Jersey.

This is actually partially true, but I have to say this is FALSE. There is a facility in New Jersey where they ship very few pianos for refinishing if they have extremely intricate woodwork. Think about the nightmare of logistics involved if they had all their pianos refinished in New Jersey! At first, I thought maybe this was true because I had heard this rumor. I thought maybe environmental laws in New York prohibited the new polyester high-gloss finishes that Steinway is offering. But no, this is false. Only a select few pianos are actually refinished in New Jersey.

8. Steinway is going public.

This is actually FALSE. There were murmurs about this, but they withdrew their SEC filing recently. They may still go public in the future. It could happen. But as of right now, there are no immediate plans for going public. I know a lot of people would like to invest in Steinway. It’s one of the strongest brand names out there.

9. Half of Steinways made in New York have Spirio systems.

This is actually TRUE. Half of the New York pianos have Spirio systems in them, and they’re selling them like hotcakes! It’s actually helped them tremendously to increase their sales.

10. Spirio is available on all Steinway models.

When you hear that half of their pianos have these systems, this sounds very plausible. But this is FALSE. The spirio is only available on the Model M, Model B, and the Model D concert grands. And yet half the total number of pianos they sell have Spirio systems. So a lot of B’s, M’s, and D’s have Spirio systems in them.

11. Spirio adds $20,000 to the cost of a piano.

This is FALSE. It actually adds $29,000 to the cost of new Steinways! Can you imagine? So if you want it, the only way you can get it is on a new Steinway.

12. For $29,000, you get a piano that records and plays back.

This is FALSE. If you want to be able to record as well as playback, it adds $48,000 to the price of a Steinway! So the least expensive recording Spirio Steinway, the 5′ 7″ Model M, will set you back $124,800 now in 2024.

13. Spirio-Cast plays live on other Spirio pianos.

This is TRUE! Somebody can play a Spirio in one place, and other Spirios can play that performance at the same time. You can have Lang Lang or Yuja Wang play your piano! That’s what Spirio is all about. That’s why people pay the big bucks to get it. Since there are so many Steinway artists out there, being able to have a library of Steinway artists is a big selling point for the Spirio system.

14. Steinway owns Renner.

Renner is the company that makes the action that’s available on Bösendorfer, Fazioli, Petrof, and so many other pianos. This is actually TRUE. Steinway bought Renner a few years ago. They’ve been using Renner actions on their Hamburg Steinways for years.

15. Hamburg and New York Steinways have the same hammers.

This is actually FALSE. There are unique hammers that are only available on New York Steinways, giving them a different sound from the Hamburg Steinways.

16. Steinway no longer makes their keyframes the way they traditionally have made them.

This is TRUE. They’re using what they say is a sturdier construction. Some technicians might find it a little harder to work on because it’s a heavier build, but they say that these are going to be more robust. So indeed, the keyframes are not made the same way they have always made them.

17. Steinway has sped up its manufacturing to meet demand.

According to Steinway, this is FALSE. They have added more workers to try to keep up with demand, but it still takes just as long to produce their pianos. It can take up to a year to produce a Steinway piano! There’s a lot involved in building pianos.

18. It is illegal to buy a Steinway decal.

This is actually TRUE. Steinway has made it illegal to buy their decals. So if you have a Steinway piano that you’ve had rebuilt and refinished, you might not be able to get a decal if your piano has been refinished unless you use all Steinway parts. But the catch is, you can’t buy Steinway pin blocks or soundboards. So if you rebuild your Steinway, you can’t buy the decals like you can for virtually every other piano brand in the world. Why does Steinway do this? Well, Steinway says it’s because they want to assure that anything that says Steinway on the front has the high quality associated with their name, so it doesn’t tarnish their reputation. Some people say it’s because used Steinways are actually the biggest competition Steinway has, because if somebody wants a Steinway, they’re probably not going to buy a Yamaha, Kawai, or any other piano. They want a Steinway. So they’re probably going to seek out a used Steinway if they can’t afford a new one. Who knows what the truth is. It could be elements of both.

19. 90% of concert artists play Steinway pianos.

This is actually FALSE. Over 97% of concert artists play Steinways! Why is this? Is Steinway that much better than every other piano brand? There are so many great piano companies. But the fact of the matter is, one by one, all the piano companies supporting the concert market have dropped out. The last holdout up until near the end of the 20th century was Baldwin. Baldwin had a good share of the concert market. But think of the daunting task of having concert grands ready in virtually every major city in the world. Even Yamaha tried to do that in the late 90s but couldn’t swing it. It was just too much of a burden to have these pianos prepped and ready for the concert stage in every major city. So any touring concert pianist really has no choice. They have to go with Steinway if they want to have pianos to play on in concerts all around the world.

20. The most expensive Steinway costs a million dollars.

A Steinway concert grand costs over $200,000. Are there any models that cost $1 million? Well, this is a misleading question because the answer is FALSE. The most expensive Steinway costs $2.5 million! What piano could possibly command $2.5 million? Well, this is the rare hand-painted Pictures at an Exhibition piano, named after the famous piece by Mussorgsky.

All of the movements of this magnificent work are painted on this one-of-a-kind piano that is just unbelievably intricate in its painting.

How well did you do with these 20 true or false questions?

Let us know in the comments here at LivingPianos.com how well you did with these 20 true or false questions! How many did you get right? How many of them surprised you? Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin, here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.

For premium videos and exclusive content, you can join my Living Pianos Patreon channel! www.Patreon.com/RobertEstrin

Contact me if you are interested in private lessons. I have many resources for you! Robert@LivingPianos.com

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. I’m here today with the piano owned by Thomas Edison! This piano was purchased by Thomas Edison in 1890 for $725! It’s a Steinway Model B with 85 keys, which is the last year Steinway offered pianos with less than 88 keys. This piano has had some restoration, but is largely original. There are other artifacts about it that are so fascinating, you’re not going to believe it!

This instrument was one of the first pianos ever recorded!

Everybody knows that Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, but he also invented the phonograph two years earlier in 1877. I have here a recording made, perhaps on this piano, from the late 1800s. It’s played on an original Edison phonograph which used wax cylinders instead of familiar discs. You can hear quite a difference in the recording quality compared to modern recording. But it is remarkable that recordings could be made so long ago. I have the original invoice here from 1890 from Steinway, and a letter Thomas Edison wrote to Steinway from his laboratory.

From the Laboratory
of
Thomas A. Edison

Orange, New Jersey, June 2nd, 90-

Steinway and Sons,

Gents,

I have decided to keep your grand piano.
For some reason unknown to me It gives
better results than any so far tried.
Please send bill with lowest price.

Yours,

Thomas A. Edison

Isn’t that unbelievable? Well, you might wonder where this piano came from.

I’m very pleased to introduce to you someone who you may have seen before here at LivingPianos.com, The Steinway Hunter: Bob Friedman who located this piano and whose home in upstate New York I am in right now.

Robert Estrin:
Bob, it’s a pleasure to be with you here.

Bob Friedman:
Well, thank you. It’s nice that you came to visit me.

Robert Estrin:
A lot of people might not know that you are The Steinway Hunter.

You have perhaps found and sold more Steinway pianos than anyone ever!

I don’t know if that’s true, but it’s arguably true, wouldn’t you say?

Bob Friedman:
I’d say that I haven’t stopped for close to 50 years now. So if I get up to bat every day and do this until the big leagues close, then maybe that will be true!

Robert Estrin:
I know there are so many great stories in The Steinway Hunter, your book, which is a fabulous read. But tell us about how you came upon this piano.

Bob Friedman:
Interestingly enough, it was put up for sale on EstateSale.com in Huntington, Long Island.

Robert Estrin:
Did they even know what they had?

Bob Friedman:
They knew what they had, but they didn’t know the value in the history of the instrument. After all the research was done and all the paperwork confirmed that it was Thomas Edison’s piano, the one that was in his laboratory music room from 1890 when he purchased it new from Steinway until 1929. I bought the piano.

Robert Estrin:

What are your plans for this piano?

I know here it is in your living room, which is awesome. But you have so many pianos coming and going. This should be in a museum or something, shouldn’t it?

Bob Friedman:
We’re hoping to do a Smithsonian documentary, and then to try and find a home for it in a museum that would like to house the piano.

Robert Estrin:
That would be great! I understand The New York Times was here to do a write up on the piano.

Bob Friedman:
We made some discoveries about the instrument.

Thomas Edison was nearly 100% deaf, and the only way he could hear his instruments and his music boxes was to bite into them.

It just so happens that Edmund Morris, who is a Pulitzer Prize winning biographer who did the last biography on Thomas Edison, completed in 2019, wrote in his book that Edison would bite his piano. The proof was really not out there. It was information that he’d researched over his life and he put it in his book. Well, we made that discovery! A very good associate of mine, who is a historian for Edison, found the bite marks on the piano right there. So, I called up James Barron, who’s a staff writer for The New York Times, and the minute he heard that he said, “I’d like to do a story on the piece.”

Robert Estrin:
People may be thinking, “Why would he bite his piano and his phonograph?” It seems kind of crazy. But it’s because sound travels through solid much more readily than through the air. So your teeth are a fantastic conductor of sound.

Bob Friedman:
The sound goes up into your head. Your head feels like a tuning fork. That’s how Edison heard his piano.

Robert Estrin:
Thank you so much for inviting me into your home and allowing me to play this historical piano. I appreciate it.

Bob Friedman:
And I appreciate it!

Robert Estrin:
We also have here today a wonderful historian who knows a tremendous amount about Thomas Edison. He’s a musician and he’s a piano technician. He also has an incredible collection of early phonographs going back to the 1800s! He can tell us a little bit about the technology. And because he has the unique perspective of being a piano technician and also an Edison historian, he’s going to shed a lot of light on this subject for you.

I’m really pleased to introduce to you, Charles Frommer. Charles, thanks so much for joining us today.

 

Charles Frommer:
Thanks for having me!

Robert Estrin:
You prepped this piano and I’m loving what you did with it. It sounds amazing for an instrument from 1890! It is pretty incredible.

Charles Frommer:
It was a pleasure to work on it. The story goes that Bob Friedman had me come in to tune Thomas Edison’s piano. I was very excited. I’ve been a fan of recording history since I was a kid.

Robert Estrin:
And you have quite a collection of phonographs. What’s the oldest recording gear you own?

Charles Frommer:

My oldest piece of recording equipment is an 1898 Berliner Gramophone, which was sort of the competitor to the cylinder phonograph at the time.

 

Robert Estrin:
A lot of people don’t know that the precursor to the disc was the cylinder. And the reason why discs won out is that you could store them more easily. But was there any sonic advantage to the disc initially?

Charles Frommer:
The discs were more convenient. They were easier to manufacture because you could press them like pancakes, and they were easier to store. They were also a little louder. But Edison was correct in noting that the surface speed was constant on a cylinder, whereas on a disc, as it gets towards the inside, if the rotation is steady, you have less surface per time and the quality reduces. Edison was fairly stubborn in his resistance to using disc technology. I think it was only in 1911 or thereabouts that Edison yielded and made discs. His discs were still different in that he continued his vertical cut technology.

Robert Estrin:

Another interesting thing about Edison is that he chose artists based on how well they reproduced on his technology.

 

He was less interested in the musical content. On many of his cylinders, he wouldn’t even put the names of the artists. He was more concerned with how they sounded. Which is why you have mentioned that he recorded a lot of banjo, because the transients could cut through.

Charles Frommer:
Banjos and woodblocks. Things with a very quick decay. There was actually a diaphragm that vibrated, much like the surface of a banjo. It was connected directly to the cutter, which would cut the wax. That made the groove. There was no electronic interface in between until about 1925. What I find interesting is that there’s a picture of Edison later in life listening to his assistant who’s playing music. He was actually somewhat controlling of the music that he had on his label. He liked to choose what bands would record and what tunes would be recorded. I think his favorite song was I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen. But he would sit and listen while somebody played.

Robert Estrin:
So a dental professional confirmed that these are indeed teeth marks. Is that right?

Charles Frommer:
Yes. I didn’t know what they were. Personally, I was just here to tune. I was halfway through tuning it and I noticed these marks on the top. Usually when a piano has been played by a professional, you will see marks on the fallboard. So I was puzzled by this. And suddenly, I remembered having read somewhere that Edison, being almost completely deaf, would sink his teeth into the wood of his phonograph to listen to records. It was then that I realized that’s what these marks are!

Robert Estrin:
What’s really remarkable is that although this piano has had some restoration along the way with a new sound board, new strings, hammers, and damper felt, that nobody got rid of these marks. And thank goodness for that! It has tremendous historic significance. It is a wonderful instrument and I just want to thank both you and Bob for sharing this instrument with everybody out there.

Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.

You can find Bob Friedman’s book, The Steinway Hunter HERE!

For premium videos and exclusive content, you can join my Living Pianos Patreon channel! www.Patreon.com/RobertEstrin

Contact me if you are interested in private lessons. I have many resources for you! Robert@LivingPianos.com

Welcome to LivingPianos.com. I’m Robert Estrin, and this is Piano Test-Drive! I have a gorgeous instrument to present to you! The first thing I did on this piano is the first thing I do on almost every piano I encounter, which is to improvise. I let the sounds take me where they will. Truth be known, I did record the Chopin G minor Ballade on this instrument. You can find that performance here. But what’s really fascinating is sitting down on an instrument with no preconceived notions and just letting the sound take you.

An instrument like this Steinway Concert Grand from 1952, which has been masterfully rebuilt, is almost like driving a sports car.

Any maneuver you want to undertake, the instrument can handle it. You can go anywhere you like, and it can take you there at lightning speed! For example, the opening chords of the improvisation you’re about to hear, which I recorded last night. They’re massive chords. They blend from one to the next and it’s a glorious big sound. Yet in the middle, I come down and play with delicacy, just like if you’re in that sports car and you decide to take a scenic drive by the ocean to enjoy a little bit of the scenery. There are repeated notes, there’s everything I could throw at this piano! I’m wondering how you’ll like this. Listen for the end, because you’ll hear the massively strong, lowest B-flat octave on the piano at the end of this improvisation. I hope you like it!

The Steinway model D is the Concert Grand you see on stages throughout the world!

If you go to the symphony to see a concerto, 97% of the time it’s a Steinway model D Concert Grand on stage. It’s the de facto standard. To have a glorious instrument like this is such a treat. I just want to record as much as I can on this piano for the time I have it.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this! I would love to hear your impressions of this instrument in the comments here at LivingPianos.com and YouTube. Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin here LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.

For premium videos and exclusive content, you can join my Living Pianos Patreon channel! www.Patreon.com/RobertEstrin

Contact me if you are interested in private lessons. I have many resources for you! Robert@LivingPianos.com

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
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Hi, I’m Robert Estrin. This is LivingPianos.com. The question today is, “How Long Does it Take to Rebuild a Piano?”

There’s a very wide range of time, and there are many aspects to this question. Let’s say you have a piano you want to have rebuilt. Perhaps you have a Steinway, you want to have restored and you decide to send it to Steinway to rebuild. You’re probably going to wait over a year to get your piano back. It can take that long! Now, does that mean they’re taking the entire year to rebuild it? Well, yes and no. They might do parts of different pianos simultaneously. However:

It takes at least months to rebuild a piano.

Now, the other aspect of this question is, what does it mean to rebuild a piano? There are different parts of a piano that can be rebuilt. For example, are you replacing the sound board or repairing the old one? Are you creating a new key set, or are you staying with the original keys? There are different parts of a piano that can be utilized in rebuilding in most instances. Unless you have a piano that’s a complete disaster, you’re going to utilize a lot of the existing parts, so it can take different amounts of time depending upon how much work is required.

Let’s say, for example, you have an unusual piano from the late 1800s with a pre-modern action and it’s an art-case with beautiful scroll work, and some of the scroll work is missing. Perhaps other parts of the piano are destroyed as well, such as the music rack or one of the legs. It could take a very long time to match the woods, to hand-carve the beautiful intricate parts to make the piano match the way it was originally manufactured.

It could take longer than a year.

But I would say that any kind of even the most basic rebuilding that keeps the original action and replaces only some action parts, replaces strings, perhaps pin block, refinish the case, re-guild the plate, has got to take an absolute minimum of two to three months, if that’s all they’re working on. It is a big job. Not only that, you don’t want to rush through it because a piano needs to settle in, and a great part of the work of rebuilding a piano comes after the rebuilding in adjusting everything to play on a high level. On top of that, it’s important to make sure everything is stable.

If a piano has just been rebuilt and hasn’t had fine work performed, it will sound horrendous!

It takes tremendous refinement to get a rebuilt piano to play on a high level. It’s best to let the piano sit, play it, and have technicians work on it, and, of course, even over the next year or two, a rebuilt piano, just like a brand-new piano, is not going to be really settled in and stable for at least a year or two. You must play the piano and have it serviced on a very regular basis until it becomes stable.

So it’s all part of the process. I hope this has been helpful for you. If you have a piano you’re thinking of rebuilding and you want any advice, you’re welcome to contact us here at info@livingpianos.com. Thanks again. I’m Robert Estrin. We’ll see you next time.

949-244-3729

This is Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com. The question today is, “Why are Hamburg Steinways so hard to find?” Steinway was started by German immigrants as an American company and later started building pianos both in New York and Hamburg, Germany.

The reason why they are so scarce in North America is because the New York factory services our whole hemisphere: North America, South America, and Central America. The Hamburg factory supplies pianos to Europe and Asia. So, there are very few over here and if you want to get one through the Steinway dealer network, it is going to cost a premium. The ones there are earmarked for their market and there are challenges to overcome such as overseas shipping. Something else is to consider is being able to buy Euros with Dollars which can increase costs as well..

There are a lot of reasons why they are very difficult to buy in North America and really scarce. Some people wonder, if they are better. That’s a whole other subject for you which I cover on the following video:

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN NEW YORK AND HAMBURG STEINWAYS

Thanks for joining me, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store info@LivingPianos.com 949-244-3729