Wednesday, January 28. 2009
Reflections on a 'misspent' youth Posted by Dr Christopher Moore
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19:47
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Well, not exactly misspent. I managed four piano diplomas plus a honours degree in chemistry before I was 21, and my PhD followed from that. But whilst I enjoyed some success musically at that stage and gave a number of reasonably successful recitals, it is interesting that after all this time I can’t really remember how I played – although I must have played well enough to get through the diplomas I suppose.
I was reminded of this over the last few weeks when I’ve been working on the pieces for either recording or else for my next fundraising recital which I hope to put on in a couple of month’s time. To put it bluntly, I’m sloppy… Which of course takes me take to something that I wrote quite early on in this blog which has turned out to be totally true, as I no doubt expected at the time – “This piano is of such a high quality and is so responsive and reactive to the fingers that it accentuates everything that I do wrong.” And it does with a vengeance. I’m finding that whilst I could afford what might be called a certain laxity in execution when I was young, I certainly can’t do that now – it would just sound horrible. So I really need to focus on getting the notes right as much as possible, and that is a problem given my eyesight such as it is because my ability to move around the keyboard is somewhat limited now. However, there is no doubt that I am improving in that regard, and last week my eye got another YACBOH (check previous posts for the definition of this mysterious term) and my vision of the keyboard is getting better. As well as this my memory is beginning to function again and I’m beginning to find my feel for the music is improving all the time and the sounds that I am producing are quite musical – at least compared to what I was producing before. Wayne is coming down to tune and voice the piano early next week and if our ears are in any reasonable shape after listening to every note on the piano hammered into submission ad nauseum as is quite often the case, we may be able to get some test recording done. The repertoire is beginning to take shape – at last count I had well over fifty pieces that were good enough for me to consider either recording or performing – and my aim is to have at least one CD recorded by the end of March. I’m hoping that is not too ambitious, but we shall see. Thursday, January 15. 2009Sonorities
I’ve mentioned before that one of the main tasks for someone who wants to get the best out of a Stuart piano (or any other piano for that matter, but I’m focusing on the Stuart here) has to learn how to listen to what he or she is playing as distinct from merely hearing what is played. One needs to analyse the sound that is coming back – the harmonies, the sustains, the tone, the volume – all of these together go to make up the whole of the musical experience.
When one does this, it is not unusual to find that the music which is coming out is totally different to anything that you’ve played before – as I’ve said many times, on this piano you really do need to reinvent the way you play. I’ve been tinkering over the last few days with some transcriptions of J.S.Bach chorales by composers/pianists such as Margaret Sutherland, Edward Krish and Alexander Siloti, who as well as his well-known Prelude in B Minor also did a very effective transcription of the Air from the Orchestral Suite No 2. All are, not unexpectedly, slow and sonorous pieces, but what has surprised me is the effectiveness of the Stuart piano in being able to bring out not only the sonorities but also the harmonies, the counterpoint, the depth of the keyboard from the bass through to the treble and the marvelous way in which Bach uses the bass as a sustained counterpoint to what else is going on. Add into that the marvellous clarity of even the lowest bass notes, the dynamic range and tonal variation the piano allows you and you end up with a sound that is very organ-like in terms of its grandeur, power and tonal variation. I realise that Wayne designed these pianos in the first place to take advantage of and to provide a voice for 20th and 21st century music, but let’s not lose sight of the fact that this piano also allows for effective and dynamic interpretations of much more music than that. Bach’s music is so versatile in that respect – from the original Moog recordings of Walter Carlos to explorations of fugues by traditional Japanese instruments there is much to be gleaned. I’ve added a few more pieces to my recording wish list. Wednesday, January 14. 2009Tunings and other matters
I received the latest update to my Cleartune application on the iPhone yesterday, and this version has a number of improvements to its accuracy, and importantly now allows custom tunings to be added.
So I added two: Young 1799, and the J.S.Bach tuning which, it is believed, he used for the Well-Tempered Clavier. Having measured the tuning on the Stuart relative to these tunings there is obviously a difference particularly with the larger offsets but I will need to start tuning my other ‘little’ piano with one of these tunings (probably the Young 1799 as before) to see whether it is practical to be able to tune a piano to these tunings using the iPhone. I may also have to add in some sort of octave stretching but it should be instructive even though I may end up with a totally out of tune piano. However, I will leave the Stuart at equal temperament. Given the fact that I am playing much more modern music which was written with equal temperament in mind, my experiments with well-temperament on a Stuart piano will have to wait until I get my second one. The only problem with that is that I don’t know where I’m going to put it … A pity really. Tuesday, January 13. 2009
I’m beginning to get somewhere … Posted by Dr Christopher Moore
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So far it has been a quiet beginning to what is hopefully going to be a better year for me both health-wise and music-wise. My last checkup with my trusty GP revealed no health problems requiring immediate attention, and my cholesterol level is sufficiently low for me to be able to enjoy the occasional fried chip once again.
On the music front things have been fairly quiet but I have noticed some positive signs that auger well in terms of my reclaiming some lost skills from last year. The main one is my eyesight. I am adjusting well to looking out of my right eye and I’m finding that the left eye is not interfering nearly so much as it used to – the brain is finally getting the message that things have changed with regard to my visual acuity and I’m finding my way around the keyboard with more confidence than I have had for a while now. A second one is my memory. For some unimagined reason I’m beginning to memorise music much more easily that I did previously. I’m commented about this in this blog before but I really don’t know the reason. However, the overall result of these is that at least to my eyes I’m playing much better than I did even late last year, and I think I may have some idea about why that may be. I’ve always thought that playing the piano was a complete loop of skills and activities which produced an overall result called ‘music’, or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof. Ears -> Brain -> Fingers -> Piano -> Ears Once this loop is working effectively the production of music becomes automatic in the sense that everything flows and is totally integrated. My problem has been that the link between the brain and fingers (my eyesight) has been disrupted and this has thrown off the entire system – I really struggled at times to make sense of what I was doing. But now things are getting better and I’m beginning to ‘feel’ the music again in a way that at least to my ears is getting back to what I know I can do. Add on to this the capabilities of the Stuart piano and I’m getting to the stage where I’m controlling the piano in the way I want to. That’s not to say that my technique is brilliant – far from it and that will never change, and also my vision will not allow me to make large jumps up and down the piano with any degree of certainty, at least not yet. However, it is the ‘feel’ that I’m after and my use and control of the sonorities of the piano is getting to the stage where a number of pieces are good enough for me to think about recording. I will test this out over the coming weeks, but I will not make any definitive recordings until the piano is tuned again towards the end of this month. The piano is still in remarkably good tune considering, but I know how much of a perfectionist Wayne is in this regard and given that I want to focus on the vertical nature of the sound as much as anything else, we’ll need to get things pretty much right, especially in the upper registers. All in all, a good start. Let’s hope it keeps going. Monday, January 5. 2009
FUD – and I don’t mean the Elmer ... Posted by Dr Christopher Moore
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17:45
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One of the good things about the internet is the ability to communicate and to transfer information. The use of fora and blogs is mute testimony to this. The problem is, however, quality rather than quantity of information. Most fora I scan have a depressingly low signal-to-noise ratio (or maybe I should call it quality-to-FUD ratio) and the really good quality and useful information tends to get lost in a sea of something dark, murky and somewhat smelly.
Take this quite reasonable question from one such source: “Why is it that the overall piano industry seems to move forward with innovation at a seemingly glacial snail’s pace?” (I’ve ‘corrected’ the grammar and spelling to protect the innocent, and I’m also bemused by the concept of a glacial snail – it must be well insulated). The first response (of which I’m quoting part) was full of misinformation and displayed an alarming lack of knowledge on the part of the poster: “Acoustic pianos are a 19th century/early 20th century product. The bulk of music written for the piano was written during that time. Pianos were fully developed instruments by the beginning of the 20th century. Everything that has happened since then has been a refinement, rather than a major change.” Not only that, but others who should have known better but were obviously keen to make their mark agreed with this. “I think XXXXX's answer to this summed it up perfectly.” “As usual, XXXXX, you nailed it.” “Right On, XXXXX!! “XXXXX surely hit the nail on the head.” Did he now? Let’s just say that if he were a carpenter there’s no way I’d let him anywhere near my house. His argument is very easily debunked. There has been a huge amount of piano music written after the 19th/early 20th century. The real issue is that up to this point in time the piano hasn't really changed since that time despite the massive changes in style and sonority of the music written to this date. Innovation does exist - and the Stuart & Sons piano is a perfect example of what innovation can achieve in an industry where I do agree real innovation has been lacking for well over a century. It is ridiculous that 21st century piano music is being written for a piano designed in the 19th century. Innovation in this case does not mean materials such as carbon fiber or teflon but a complete reappraisal of all aspects of piano design. Stuart pianos are totally conventional in terms of materials used. One of the attractions of the Stuart piano is just that – compared to all other ‘Steinway-based’ pianos in the market place it is a fully innovative piano where a number of significant advances and changes in design come together to produce a piano that is totally different to any other and is the only piano I have played which is, in the hands of a skilled musician, fully adaptable to any kind of music. Its just a pity that many people seem to so tied up with the 19th century ethos of most pianos that they are unable to see further than the end of their ears. Not a pretty sight… Thursday, January 1. 2009
Another year passed, and another ... Posted by Dr Christopher Moore
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18:23
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… and I suspect that I’m not going to able to predict anything about this year given that there is no way I could have predicted what happened to me last year.
But last year is last year and I really must focus on what I may be able to do this year on a musical level, and that means what am I going to achieve with the piano. I suspect the best I can do at this stage is to proceed with the CD recording I’ve been planning for a while but have not been able to proceed with for a variety of reasons mainly connected with my eyesight problems. There is always a concern in the back of my mind that I will still have problems further down the track but on the other hand my eye has been stable for a while and given that that is the minimum I can hope for there is now no reason that I can’t progress. Having observed some tricks of the recording trade at Tonya’s concert late last year there is a bit of experimenting to be done but within a very short time that can be finalised. My main fear is myself – that I haven’t regained the skills I had before my operations, but having played informally for a number of friends over the last few days (on other pianos, not the Stuart) I have been pleasurably surprised by some of the music that’s coming out. Maybe I’m not as bad as I think I am. Today was spent preparing for and then having the family down for a New Year’s Lunch. Everything went off well and it is very pleasing to know that the family (on both sides) is strong and very much together. I suspect this is something that not too many people can say for themselves and it is something that I value very highly, particularly as I grow older. The one thing I can be certain about is that music will remain an integral part of me for the foreseeable and non-foreseeable future, and that the Stuart piano, and the network of people this has brought me into contact with, will be an increasingly important factor in what I do. When I started this blog, I mentioned a number of ‘first impressions’ which I believed were very important in understanding what this piano ‘means’. I’ve no doubt that these remain – and my experiences with people who know Stuart pianos show that these principles are not just valid for me but appear to be more common than I first expected. Hopefully the recordings I do this year will assist others to understand what I mean. Friday, December 26. 2008
'Twas the night after Christmas ... Posted by Dr Christopher Moore
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… and I’m still in one piece, thankfully, given what was initially a very busy but ultimately a very rewarding day.
Our mass went off very well, although once again someone had got the sound balance wrong for the keyboard so I had to be very careful, and everyone sang, played and directed (David, of course) very well. A nice round of applause at the end from a full church was much appreciated. My niece, ably assisted by other members of the family, put on a very good meal and afterwards an impromptu jam session involving keyboard, tenor sax, guitars and cahon with all sorts of music, Christmas and non-Christmas ensued. After what has been a somewhat difficult year for me medically it was good and very much appreciated to have something that was not only uplifting in its own right but was also very much a promise of improvements next year. I haven’t quite decided on my New Year’s Resolutions yet – normally I don’t make any but I think this time I need to push myself in a number of musical areas that perhaps I haven’t really focused on this year as much as I should. For the last three years since I acquired the piano, I’ve been very grateful for the musical pleasure it has given me and others, and for the friendships I have made through it, and I will look to capitalise on that as best my limited abilities will allow me. I’ve had the opportunity to develop the core of a network of people who have both the interest and the means to progress music on the Stuart piano much further than has been done before, and I suspect that will begin to take up more of my time in the future. But that is the future – today is still a holiday for all and I will take advantage of that with the family. Wednesday, December 24. 2008
'Twas the night before Christmas ... Posted by Dr Christopher Moore
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14:46
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… and I suspect a few creatures will be stirring other than mice around our house, not that there are any of those of course, at least not that I’ve seen recently.
Tomorrow will be a busy day. David and I will do a mass at a local church in the morning, together with around 20-30 of his friends with assorted voices, guitars and the like. A packed church is likely. I won’t be playing at St Peter Julian’s this year since the church has yet to reopen – the refurbishment is taking longer than expected. We will then visit my niece’s house for an extended booze-up, er sorry, Christmas dinner. Should be good. It has been an interesting year musically and given my visual travails I suspect I’ve come out of it pretty well. Piano-wise I really must get back into some serious practice. I’ve been too lazy, to be truthful, and I have sufficient material now for the two CDs I’ve been planning, so that is going to have to be a new year’s resolution. But that is next year… Happy Christmas etc to all. Monday, December 22. 2008Something of a global view …
… of the world economic downturn as it relates to the piano industry does not paint a pretty picture. The general view is that piano sales overall are down as might be expected, but this has resulted in more excess production capacity in companies that were already feeling the pinch due to competition from Japan, Korea and now China. It appears as though Steinway and Bosendorfer may be feeling much more than just the pinch here, although both companies are big enough with sufficient financial backing to survive longer term, although in what form remains to be seen. Yamaha are making the right noises about continuing the ‘Bosendorfer tradition’, whatever that may be and whatever significance it now has, but it does appear that Baldwin, an American manufacturer of high quality pianos with historically a very good reputation up to this point of time, is either on the verge of collapse or else has collapsed with the majority of its manufacturing going to China. What effect this will have on their overall quality and thus ‘reputation’ remains to be seen.
All of which suggests that price competition between manufacturers and their dealers is going to increase and this will inevitably lead to lesser profits overall and further shakeouts in the industry – this is not just a piano industry thing but will affect many other industries overall as well. So those manufacturers that are in the dealer model for piano sales are in for, and indeed are probably having, a very rough ride. When you add in the pressures to manufacture more pianos at a cheaper cost (ie. more ‘efficiently’) it is no surprise that something has to give – and that quite often is the quality of the piano as evidenced by the following quote: “I bought an Essex piano recently. It is the upright UP123E. It looks great. Big and shiny. It sounded good in the showroom. I liked it as it was bright and loud. Alas, showroom acoustics can be deceiving! It was delivered a week later into my music room. It sounds terrible! It is overloud and very harsh with some of the mid bass strings sounding dead! Especially at both ends of the treble and bass bridges. B below middle C sounds really sick. Also the main problem I have with this piano is the soundboard resonation buzzing AFTER the notes are played and after the dampers are against the strings. The dampers are firm against the strings but the soundboard continues to vibrate and sound sympathetic noise! It's so annoying - I can't stand it. I have decided this piano is going back to the showroom and to be swapped over for something else.” Now Essex pianos are ‘designed’ by Steinway and manufactured in China, and this piano was purchased in Melbourne, Australia. • Pianos always sound different in the home than they do in the showroom. • Pianos need careful voicing and tuning all the time. • When you are dealing with pianos that are built down to a price rather than up to a quality level then it really is buyer beware with a vengeance. Which makes it all the more imperative that pianos such as the Stuart do not conform in any way to the norm when it comes to piano manufacture. • Fully handcrafted • Quality maximised, not price minimised • Dealers are not part of the deal There will always be a ‘niche’ market for top-end pianos like the Stuart which are sufficiently ‘different’ to the rest to be able to marketed independently of the normal retail channels, and all of this reinforces the need for Wayne to keep out of them. Sunday, December 21. 2008
Sometimes it takes a long time ... Posted by Dr Christopher Moore
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12:26
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… for something to come together in a really satisfying way, but that is what happened yesterday at the Stuart & Sons factory in Newcastle where, for the first time, I was able to hear a very competent and mature pianist get sounds out of a Stuart piano that, as well as other people including myself, a very experienced and well equipped recording engineer told me he’d never either heard before or ever imagined a piano could produce.
Tonya Lemoh - Concert at Stuart & Sons 20th December 2008 Wayne, of course, has been in the piano business all of his life and has spent the majority of it designing and building pianos. Margaret Lemoh, like all dedicated mothers, has spent many years raising children, in this case by the name of Tonya. After all of that effort (!) we had the unique experience of a sensitive and mature artist bringing the best out of a sensitive and mature piano in a programme which did not include Beethoven, Chopin, Mozart etc etc, but nonetheless was a very well chosen and balanced programme including the music of: • Margaret Sutherland • Miriam Hyde • Claude Debussy • Joseph Marx • Elena Kats-Chernin • Alberto Ginastera • Johannes Brahms … and each piece was selected to really show how in the hands of a competent pianist the music can be enhanced by the extra capabilities of the Stuart piano. I doubt that, in particular, the Kats-Chernin (Variations on a Serious Black Dress, which incidentally she played from a hand-written score by the composer) has received a better performance – it brought the house down and for a piece of ‘modern’ classical music that is an achievement in itself. As a side note, Tonya recorded it again after the audience had gone but unfortunately one of the pages turned out to be upside down and when turned to, chaos ensued. A more cynical person than me would have said it didn’t make any difference… But of course it did – and it was a marvelous exposé of how to use the entire range of the piano to bring out the resonance, harmonics and overall vertical quality of the instrument – and in that it succeeded brilliantly. There is no doubt that this will be the definitive recording of this piece – it could not, repeat not, be played nearly as effectively on any other make of piano now matter what the quality of that piano. This is what makes the Stuart piano unique, and for the audience yesterday, the experience was unique. At the end I gave an all too brief (in my view, I could have covered much more) introduction to the piano and its features and related all of that to what Tonya had just performed. It was well received (I am quite a fluent public speaker and I know the piano well now of course), and I think everyone went away with a much better view of what the piano can do and what it means to music overall. That was why I viewed this whole event as being very important and it succeeded in what I knew it could achieve. Now we have to continue the process. A few ideas for next year are beginning to take shape – even though the shapes are somewhat amoeba-like at the moment and need much more thought. The recording of this event should be very high quality both in terms of performance and sound. It was a great event, at all levels and we all learnt a great deal. Even though I didn’t get home until 11.30pm after a two and a half hour drive (fortunately mainly on the freeway – cruise control is very, very useful) it was well worth it. Now when can we do it again? Friday, December 12. 2008I have a problem ...
… well, not so much a problem as something I have to think about and come up with a reasonable solution in a relatively short space of time.
At Tonya’s recital on the 20th December, I will have the privilege of introducing her to the audience gathered to hear her play. That is not a problem – I’ve done this on quite a few occasions over the years and certainly know how to do this in the right way – and there is a right and wrong way, believe me. But I have another task. As well as introducing Tonya, I will spend about five (hopefully!) minutes explaining to the audience the whys and wherefors of the Stuart piano. Most of the audience will not have visited the factory before, and certainly very few of them will know much if anything at all about the pianos and why they are different to what has come before. I have to try to get across why this recital is different, why the Stuart piano in the right hands (or fingers in this case) can add so much over and above the accepted norm for recitals and what they can listen for in order to appreciate both the piano and the pianiste. As I have posted before, the Stuart piano has the following advantages over a ‘normal’ piano: 1) The clarity of sound 2) The long and powerful sustain 3) The dynamic range - how easy it is to play very soft and then to follow with a thunderous volume. 4) The dynamic possibilities enabled by the two left pedals - the dolce and the una corda with the option of depressing the two simultaneously. 5) The unique behaviour of the attack and decay transients of the sound. 6) The almost total lack of low frequency masking which is the tendency of the lower frequencies to obscure or over power the upper frequencies producing the thick dull sound common in the average acoustic piano. 7) The additional keys to facilitate the performance of repertoire written since around 1840 for 8 octaves and more. The piano's practical frequency range is 102 keys, subcontra C to f above the traditional top c. In addition, there are the features of the Stuart piano which make it ideal to experience the vertical colour of the sound. In most conventional Western composition, tone colour had been regarded as a secondary element of musical expression and to counter this, musical instruments were designed to give off a specific tone colour or character bias e.g. Bosendorfer, Steinway etc. Tone colour represents the harmonic and phasing interactions within a sound envelope that enliven and highlight the musical structure – the sounds architecture. 20th century music invites us to walk in, look around and move through, it encourages us to listen for the fine-tuning of the harmonic series, the attack and decay transients of the sound envelope, balance between tone and noise, the perpetual play of shifting hues. If in most traditional Western art music tone colour may be said to adorn the structure, then in minimalist music the structure often adorns the tone colour. The vertical dimension, the physiology or architecture of sound, is concerned with space and tone colour. The horizontal dimension, the written notation or score is concerned with time and content – conceptual aesthetics and ideologies. Five minutes? More like five hours … Help!!! Thursday, December 11. 2008
What is the most important quality ... Posted by Dr Christopher Moore
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11:40
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… to be confident that he or she will be able to get the most out of a Stuart piano?
I was reminded of this yesterday when I had the pleasure of a visit by a family who I have known for a while now and I regard as very special people. Dr Nuli Lemoh is the driving force behind the construction of the Children’s Hopsital in Bo, Sierra Leone – the project for which we were able to raise quite a deal of money back in May this year at my recital. He and his wife Margaret are quite delightful in many ways (in particular Nuli’s national dress is sartorially far superior to anything I have in my wardrobe) and I’ve always said that any offspring they have must also be equally as talented as they are. And, I was right. Their daughter Tonya is a graduate of the Sydney Conservatorium and has spent the last few years in Denmark, where she has not only developed a very busy schedule as a concert, chamber and recording artiste but also now teaches at the University of Copenhagen. She is visiting family and friends here for the next month or so, and is giving a fundraising concert for the Bo Hospital at, of all places, the Stuart & Sons factory in Newcastle on the 20th of December at 2.00pm. Whilst she has some knowledge of the Stuart piano, obviously throwing her off the deep end as it were at the recital would not allow her to really come to grips with the extraordinary capabilities of these pianos. In all likelihood, she will play one of the two pianos mentioned in the previous posting. So I decided to kill two birds with one stone – invite the family down so that I could see Nuli and Margaret again, and importantly meet Tonya and let her loose to give her some first hand exposure to the Stuart piano. I was not disappointed with either. I explained in some detail about the sonority, pedals, dynamic range, sustain etc and illustrated these with appropriate bits of Debussy, Tan Dun as well as others, with appropriate apologies for my limited level of performance. Tonya then settled down and began to explore. As she progressed I began to realise that I was hearing different sounds to what I was used to hearing on the piano, and that was not necessarily because Tonya was playing music that I don’t play. She was experimenting with all sorts of combinations and it was then that I knew why she was coming to grips with the piano in such a relatively short time. She was listening. Purely and simply, she was listening - and she knew what she was listening for. She was sensitive to the music, to the sounds, to the feel - the most important quality that a pianist can have. At the end of the day, she knew what would work and what would not work as well, and that gave her the information she needed to finalise her programme for the 20th December. It reinforced a couple of the principles that I’ve had in mind for a while now: • Don’t be afraid of the bass. On any other piano, including the Steinways I have played, hitting the bass hard overpowers everything else, not so much in terms of the volume but the ‘murkiness’ of the harmonics interferes with everything else. The Stuart piano, having a very clean bass, does not react in this way and the bass is in fact complementary rather than detrimental to the rest of the piano. • Don’t be afraid of the dynamic range. The Stuart can be loud, but not painfully so as in the case of so many other pianos. As Margaret commented, the piano doesn’t overpower you – it envelops you with sound. Quite unique. I learnt a lot myself, and that is why I know this recital will be very special. Sunday, December 7. 2008
Chipmunks roasting on an open fire… Posted by Dr Christopher Moore
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19:40
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… hot sauce dripping from their toes….slurp…
I am reminded about this much more preferable wording to the original (which I’m sure everyone reading this will recognise) when I was playing with my son at his youth group’s Christmas party this afternoon. Our combination of saxophone (he played tenor this time) and keyboard (the new Kurzweil) worked very well, and a number of his friends also helped us to play, which was good. I would have preferred playing the Stuart, but then again, as I’ve said before, portability is an issue and in any case I can’t fit the Stuart into my car. I can fit the maker into my car, however, and that’s what I did when Wayne and I had lunch together yesterday in Newcastle when I was finally able to find to time to visit. We discussed a range of issues as we normally do, but from my perspective I was able to try out two new 2.9 metre grand pianos which have only recently been completed. Indeed one was so new it hadn’t had its final tuning and voicing yet – but nonetheless it sounded extraordinarily good. It had a somewhat softer tone than the other one but this is probably a voicing issue and a result of softer hammers. The interesting thing was that as I played these pianos, with pieces of music that I was quite comfortable with on my piano, that once again I found myself playing them differently, needing to allow for a much ‘wetter’ (= more reverberation) sound and also, believe it or not, longer sustain than even my piano has. Later in the afternoon Wayne was visited by two local music teachers who were interested in the pianos (although as it turned out not to buy one, although undoubtedly if they could they would have done) and after a cook’s tour of the manufacturing facility he and I spent well over an hour with them demonstrating the qualities and sounds that these pianos could produce. It really was an eye-opening experience for them, because I’m sure that although they obviously had heard of the pianos, they certainly had no idea about the ‘whys and wherefores’ of the instrument. This raises an interesting point. Giving that the major source of information concerning these pianos is the website, I get the distinct view that the kind of information Wayne and I imparted that afternoon is just not available either there or anywhere else. So it’s a new piano. So it’s a new sound. So what? What can we do with it? What does it mean? This is the information that people need to help them decide whether a Stuart piano is the one for them. If they can’t physically play one (if they are overseas for example) we have to give them the next best thing – a virtual tour of the piano that allows them to see what Wayne and I were able to show these ladies. That is a concern for me, because it does appear as though the message is not getting out the way it should and certainly not getting to the right people. Monday, December 1. 2008
The times are definitely a’changing ... Posted by Dr Christopher Moore
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19:10
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… and the old ways of doing things do not necessarily work any more. Continuing the thought process started off rather ramblingly in the previous post, it occurred to me that this provides further impetus to the thoughts I first espoused in a previous post highlighting the need for a new marketing model for Stuart pianos which did not in any way rely on the need for middlemen or dealers.
Further comments from the fora referenced above: “… there actually is a "cloak of secrecy" around piano pricing. This has nothing to do with consumers and everything to do with the piano business model. I have said it before but here goes again: Nobody benefits when a shopper cannot easily determine the price of the piano he wants to buy. Current pricing policies in the piano business make it more difficult to buy and to sell a piano than it needs to be, probably reducing overall sales volume. This has nothing to do with the actual price and the associated margins. It has to do with difficulty in determining the price, whatever it is. IMHO, the business would benefit from addressing the problem with pricing uncertainty.” The main issue I have with this sort of thing, reasonable though it may sound, is that we are focusing too much on the price rather than the value of the piano – and this latter is a much more complex and to an extent subjective topic than many would recognise. Value in a piano sense has much more to do with the musical and build qualities of a piano than it does with the price, although obviously price is still a major factor when it comes to the final purchase decision. The costs and hassles of a dealer model for Stuart pianos make it impossible in a practical sense for the business to be run in that way. An additional factor is that quite often we have seen that a high quality piano such as a Stuart is used to attract clientele to a dealer, only for that dealer to try to sell a cheaper piano to the customer – the classic ‘bait and switch’ mechanism, which should invoke instant decapitation, draw and quartering, boiling the remains in oil and then deporting to a foreign country, not necessarily in that order. That just grates. So Stuart pianos are normally sold directly through the factory, or, in theory, one (and only one) internet outlet. That means that all relevant information comes from the one source, there is no ambiguity in pricing or margins and the customer knows exactly what he, she or it is getting for how many dollars. But it important to recognise that the price is the last piece in the jigsaw puzzle. Stuart pianos are not, repeat not, commodity items to be priced as low as possible and margins set so as to promote ‘cut throat competition’ between dealers. People who want a Stuart piano for all the right reasons (music, build quality, investment, the challenge of playing one etc) will know that they will need to pay a premium price for such an instrument. This is not a mass produced clone of a Steinway – it’s a hand crafted and individually designed instrument for which the value is paramount. As I stated in a previous post, “The cost of a Stuart piano accurately reflects production, not marketing, advertising or retailing costs. You cannot compare Stuart pianos in a business sense with other ‘mass production’ (including Steinway) instruments because that ignores the fact that so few are made each per year and, of critical importance, totally by hand. Some people do not want mass produced product and actively seek the difference factor and, more to the point, are prepared to pay for it in the full knowledge and understanding that they cannot have such a product for nothing. The Stuart piano does not compete in any market niche – it has created its own.” In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that the price should not be seen at all. Obviously, for someone to go through the process and be eventually confronted with an exorbitant price that in no way reflects commercial reality will result in a very quick exit – but most people have a ball park figure and if the price is comfortable in that sense, they will sign on the dotted line. The Price is Right? No, the Value is Right. People who purchase a Stuart piano buy for uncompromised quality, not compromised price. Once again, I know. That’s what I did. Sunday, November 30. 2008The strategy is right...
I’ve commented in this blog before about the marketing structure of the piano industry and how much the average piano price is inflated by factors independent of the manufacturing process. To quote from a previous post, “The cost of a Stuart piano accurately reflects production, not marketing, advertising or retailing costs.”
I should know. I bought one. I, like others of my ilk, paid the full price for the piano. It was not discounted in any way. So it was of interest when I came across a discussion of piano pricing on the Pianoworld fora over the last couple of days. I think that readers will have some idea of my overall view on these fora from previous posts. Particularly when it comes to discussion of high-end pianos like the Stuart, the overall signal-to-noise ratio is generally very low. This is basically due to the number of people who have a specific axe to grind about particular brands, and also the number of professional dealers and technicians who have their own commercial imperatives when it comes to speaking their mind in a public forum, no matter how knowledgeable and informative they may be in matters of a more general nature. Even so, there was one post which I thought clearly enunciated a number of relevant factors, and I quote (OK, selectively but not detrimentally) here. “It is been a widely recognised industry standard for decades that piano stores need to average somewhere around 40% gross margin to survive and grow.” This may even be conservative, particularly when it comes to high-end pianos, which ‘move’ much more slowly and erratically than what might be called the ‘lower-end’ brands. Any attempt to substantially discount these high-end pianos essentially means that the dealer is subsidising these and therefore cannibalising his higher profit stock, which raises the question as to why he or she has those high end stock in the first place. “There is a very strident and vocal contingent in PW that would love nothing better than to drive every piano dealer from the planet. They believe it is their charge to make sure that every sale of a new piano goes down at as close to wholesale cost (or below) as possible. To them a retailer making a profit is an obscenity.” This, to me, is rather a jaundiced view, but it does illustrate the opposite end of the scale, namely who needs the middleman? What is the purpose of having one, and what value do they add? Well, it’s not so much that as what the public expects from them. • Highly visible and convenient (often freeway) locations • Acres of pianos to select from • Multiple units of the same model and finish to select from • All instrument in perfect tune and preparation • Back up stock to be delivered “in the box.” • Proper and conducive acoustic environments • Donations of free recital space or free loaned instruments for recitals and concerts. • The freedom to come in a play for hours on end, even pounding tunings askew. • Educational opportunities on site • Displays of sheet music, books, and software • Extended evening, weekend, and even holiday hours • Clever and frequently updated websites • Yellow page ads • Print ads in major papers, radio, and even local TV • Free tuning(s) post delivery • Free delivery (even same day) … all of which of course costs money. The problem is that potential piano buyers expect the same service features as other retail goods, for example, cars. The first four points above can relate to this and many other industries as well as the music industry. Even worse is the pricing structure offered by some manufacturers, which not unnaturally give the dealer a better deal for more pianos. An example is: “Here is an example of prices for a 6' grand: (prices have been altered slightly to protect company). These prices are almost a year old. Retail: $27,100 Wholesale: $13,540 Consortium: $9,024 So you can see the retail price is nearly 3 times the dealer price. This allows dealers to mark the piano up 100% and still sell it for what appears to be 1/3rd off retail.” So the actual production cost of many of these pianos may be as low as (or lower than) 50% of the retail cost. Take into account transport, tuning, advertising, promotions etc and you will begin to understand that the total cost of providing a piano to the door of the purchaser by the dealer is considerably higher (double or more in many cases) than the wholesale cost ex factory. What would happen if Stuart pianos were sold via this structure? • What impression does discounting a high-end piano (of whichever brand) have on the brand image? Not a positive one, certainly. • What effect does it have on the resale value? Not a positive one, certainly. Now of course, high-end pianos may not attract the same percentages, but the principle still holds. “It seems like the same old game: Jack the price way up so you can give a great discount and still make money. It's always telling that as you start going up the chain of piano quality, the discounts get smaller.” Has anyone noticed that the ‘street price’ of much music gear is invariably much lower thn the RRP? Hmmm… That is why Stuart & Sons eschew the dealership mechanism. 1) Stuart pianos are normally sold through the factory 2) People who buy them don’t need the fancy services and choices afforded by dealers who have to add substantially to the cost of the piano just to keep themselves in business and to provide facilities for those who want their hands held during the purchasing process. 3) Pianos and pianists are not static but adjust to each other over a period of time (I know that for a fact). The trick is to trust the brand, its quality and reputation. 4) Whilst it may seem that one pays premium prices for Stuart pianos, in fact the price reflects virtually 100% manufacturing costs and in fact is very good value when one compares these pianos against other brands which are still forced to submit to the old way of doing things. The result is the best of all worlds. • The challenge to adapt and reinvent. • A piano of hand crafted quality which invariably exceeds all expectations of it • A piano which does not feed the finances of those people who are not relevant to the design and manufacturing process • A piano which, as an investment, keeps its value and indeed appreciates over time I keep saying that you cannot say that about any other brand of piano. The strategy is right. If ‘high-end’ pianos need to have dealers to sell them, then I would postulate that they’re not really high-end at all. Another dastardly marketing trick exposed. |
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