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Norbert

Just curious, what did you mean by

[QUOTE]
Sorry...but there are no Chinese made pianos [to the best of my knowledge] that use true wet sand casting.

Is there another method besides wet sand cast and V-Pro?

lb

hey, guys, this is getting to be too much to keep up with... have some mercy! i have jet lag.... but reading anyway.

i'm finally home. it was incredible to sit down and play my beautiful piano after a 3.5 week separation.

i didn't find a single piano to play anywhere in hawaii. oh, one resort has baby grands in its $5,000 per night president's suites. i was going through such bad withdrawal i asked them what kind of baby grands they were. they said they didn't know. i said, "for $5,000 i can buy a baby grand."

of course, far be it for me to argue with a hotel's right to set the rental rates for its rooms with baby grands in them.

though i often do not see eye-to-eye with david burton, i have to thank you, dave, for that post you made concerning the choices i made. you really understand what i did, and i appreciate the understanding. so much so, that i saved your post to my piano file on my computer, and read parts of it aloud to my husband. thank you!

however, i do find it a bit ironic that you are so scornful of political idealists, yet so reverential towards musical idealists!!

on the subject of envy, feelings of entitlement, resentment, greed, philanthropy, just by coincidence i received this link today from an old friend. kind of throws the debate between ib, derick, and dwain into a bit of perspective, does it not?
http://www.luccaco.com/terra/terra.htm

capitalism may be the greatest economic system ever devised, but it is a lousy political system. i think the real problem in this country is how the power of the wealthy has begun to govern us politically--the links between kenneth lay and the current inhabitant of the white house being an example.

(note above edit, and stainmaster does not offend me in the least. ;-).

the media is another great example. media companies that are answerable to stockholders are incapable of upholding the public trust; they are reduced to entertainment monopolies, and are no longer suited to provide the function of a true fourth estate, without which we cannot have a democracy.

even some arch, right-wing republicans i know are starting to understand the problems with capitalism as a tool of political power. cattle ranchers can't get a fair price for their product because of vertical integration in the cattle markets, a market controlled by just THREE ag companies, fewer than when upton sinclair wrote "the jungle" in the 1920s, which was responsible for legislation controlling the stockyards. the ag companies are in violation of antitrust laws, but the dept. of ag won't go after them, and the justice department looks the other way. one rancher said to me that he believes in capitalism, of course, he's no damned communist. but he wants "capitalism with a conscience."

it doesn't take an economic genius to understand that all of this has something to do with the need for campaign finance reform. capitalism may be better in even most ways than the alternatives, but it has innate dangers, just as do other systems. one of them is concentrating too much political power in the hands of a few.

having now made my contribution to the economics portion of the thread, i'm going to declare a mea culpa, as i notice that this thread has turned unpleasantly hostile, and that some very fine people who were participating at the beginning have stopped. (though no doubt they are still reading.) possibly the hostilities have chased them away. that's too bad.

gentlepeople, might it be time to remember that friendships are best preserved by avoiding discussions of religion and politics?

finally, jolly, i like your sense of character. now what about a plot? and will you share with us the first drafts of your Piano World novella or screenplay?

signed,
pique, as she draws across her face her veil of mystery, and lapses back into the coma of jet lag...


[ February 18, 2002: Message edited by: pique ]

[ February 18, 2002: Message edited by: pique ]

Excuse me,

If one can refer to the current President as "shrub", may I refer to the previous occupant of the Oval Office as the "Stainmaster"?

"Capitalism with a conscience." That is perfect! And succinctly sums up everything I've been trying to say.

Great post pique!!!

Derick
(The capitalist with a conscience)

P.S. Although there are MANY things I don't agree with President Bush on, I feel it is important to refer to him as "President Bush". Just my opinion.

[ February 18, 2002: Message edited by: Derick ]

Jolly, Cork, & Dan you all crack me up


A Yamaha U-1 says to a Charles Walter 1500 "I'm way bigger than you, so I'm better". The "Charles Walter" says "bigger isn't always better buddy". The Yamaha says "You haven't seen me break wood kid". The Charles Walter replies "No I haven't, but least mine's the real thing when I do man".

It's late at night in a California piano shop. A mahogany Yamaha C-2 is gently sobbing and a Bechstein grand shouts "Shut the heck up, some of us are trying to sleep around here, if PENNY would have wanted you she would have bought you, now goodnight already!!!!".

[ February 18, 2002: Message edited by: freddie ]

Excuse me,

President Bush did not win the election? I could have sworn that he did. He's in the White House right now. If you're refering to the close vote in Florida, he won the original count and the recounts. Even later newspaper analyses show that Bush won.

This comment shows how detached from reality you are. The rest of your screed just proves it.

Stick to pianos.

brad,
nobody bothered to wait for the results of the election. he was declared president by the supreme court. that is not being elected.

oh, well, maybe i should go back and delete that one little outburst from my post.

isn't it wonderful to learn how different we all are from each other? diversity is the spice of life.

What links would that be? There have been no improper links found at all, in spite of how hard the left has attempted to create them. And where is your concern with McCauliffe and the *other* big bankruptcy that's going on, where he as well as a bunch more on the left clearly had their hands deep in the cookie jar? No offense, Pique, but this very type of selective political spinning is why I have no respect for the left wing of the political spectrum, particularly the fourth estate who as a group refuses to address anything other than those issues that further their liberal socialist agenda.

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media companies that are answerable to stockholders are incapable of upholding the public trust; they are reduced to entertainment monopolies, and are no longer suited to provide the function of a true fourth estate, without which we cannot have a democracy.

And if the fourth estate doesn't figure out how biased they are, we are soon going to find we have no democracy *because* of them. Particularly public radio, who has become an enemy of freedom in my opinion. They have become so biased that they are worse than useless. The sad part is most of them don't even know it. I can give you an example of this right from your own post: you cannot seem to bring yourself to say "President Bush", can you? You call him "the current inhabitant". As much as I despised the Clintons, and as much as I consider them to be the most dangerous and devastating bunch of trash to ever gain power, I was always able to call him by his name.

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capitalism may be better in even most ways than the alternatives, but it has innate dangers, just as do other systems. one of them is concentrating too much political power in the hands of a few.

This would depend on one's viewpoint wouldn't it? It can also be said that the danger we face is the fact that the segment of the population that has been taught to depend on government to provide for their needs instead of them taking responsibility for themselves has grown so large that some politicians are willing to cater to them to get reelected at the expense of the good of the nation by promising even *more* government, strangling the productive segment of the population even further. The more people you can teach to depend on the government to take care of them, the more votes you'll get for the politician who promises to keep taking care of them. The "concentration of power" will come once we are a completely socialist country. It is the very resistance to this trend that keeps there from being a "concentration of power".

You mention ranchers. It has been the constantly increasing interference from government programs and regulations that has made it impossible for the typical rancher to compete, not the existence of a few big agricultural concerns. In fact, this regulatorial interference in free enterprise is the *cause* of those big ag companies developing in the first place. Or do you not remember all the farmers who were forced into bankruptcy and had all their land and equipment forcibly sold at auction because they couldn't make any money due to federal regulatory burdens? No one in the fourth estate or the liberal left wants to deal with the fact that it has been massive federal interference that has made it impossible for the independent farmer or rancher to make a profit, and that the very interference from government that put them out of business is what enabled a few bigger fish to gobble them up.

Which strikes at the very heart of what this thread was discussing - federal interference in the free market system as it relates to setting the selling price of pianos was proposed. I guess we can take a lesson from ranchers as to what the outcome would be - all pianos would be sold by a few giant dealerships, government regulations would make it impossible for the independent dealer to compete, and you would end up just as I have already said, fewer choices, poorer service, and most likely poorer products.

The socialist left always skips over the damage done to things as a result of the federal programs they are so fond of. They put thousands of ranchers out of business, cause them to lose farms that had been in the family for years, cause them to lose everything they have, they sit by and watch a few companies grow larger by ruthlessly swallowing up these smaller farms and ranches, then write their reports about the evil "big corporations", thump their chests as they tell you how they're "for the little guy", and ignore the fact that it was their unwavering support of the socialist agenda that left that trail of ruins among the "little guys", and that set the stage for the big ag companies to exist. Then, without so much as a glance back suggest that this be done for retail sales of big ticket items, all in the name of "fairness", of course. And as they remind themselves of how misguided those poor backward right wingers are, and how correct their own logic is, never once do they associate the effects of their previous input as the possible cause to the damage they see later on. It's always "big corporations" at the root of the problem.

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i notice that this thread has turned unpleasantly hostile, and that some very fine people who were participating at the beginning have stopped.

Please do not take anything I just wrote to you as hostile, or me trying to take a swipe at you. That was not my intent. But reading my post will require you to have an open mind, and I'm not certain that a member of the fourth estate can do that.

As for the political discussion and ensuing hostilities that have resulted - I guess it is safe to say that somewhere around 350 posts, a thread begins to stink like a rotten carcass. I suggest we *all* - me included - read back through the thread and find the responsible portion of it that is capable of producing something of value and get back on that instead of politics. There is a left, and a right. If all we had were one, we'd be in anarchy. Accept it, and let the fight for control between the two sides go on in another forum. Let's get back to pianos, and smacking the crap out of Derick (just teasing, Derick )

I agree with Pique in one thing only. It is time to close this thread. I enjoy reading what all of you have to say, You are a remarkable set of people. Help me to keep liking you all by letting the personal, political, and religious aspect of this thread come to an end.

Awe c'mon guys, I just got here and you are telling me the party is over????

I really HATE it when I miss a good argument...

;-)

Keep the thread going . . .

There was a real flame war back in mid-2000 on the old board which drove away many of the regulars. The worst perpetrators of that war are long gone (remember that guy Nils Luhrman?).

The present is nothing more than bickering between friends. Whenever someone veers too far into politics or religion, they always get vigorously slapped around like just happend here.

Back to pianos . . .

There are two "Kings of the Hill" --

Yamaha and Steinway.

These are the only two pianos that 96 percent of the people have ever heard of.

Yamaha is king of the consumer market; Steinway is king of the prestige market.

This has someething to do with merit; more to do with marketing and the resulting public perception.

Yamaha produces a well maufacutured plesant sounding instrument at a series of price levels which the middle class can afford.

Steinway lives off its fame as the instrument of the immortals. It deserves a lot of that fame. Almost everyone knows they are expensive and a prestige item.

So, friends, that's the answer. Two Kings ... Long may they reign!

[ February 18, 2002: Message edited by: Brad ]

[ February 18, 2002: Message edited by: Brad ]

Folks,there's nothing wrong with a good ol' fist fight anyway!

There's been enough TALK on this thread to rewrite the Piano book and I know that Larry Fine is getting nervous out there!!

Gloves off...and SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST!!

[At least this way we're getting back to... the real world of...er... PIANOS again!!]


Norbert Marten
[readying my 'secret' rocket launcher!]

[ February 18, 2002: Message edited by: Norbert ]

wow.. 372 posts for one thread.. and without any help from Mr Jarl Sigurd .. kewl.

hm, i think i caught a little swipe at the end of that comment, no?


actually, i didn't take anything you said personally, larry, but as honest debate. it frankly fascinates me here, as in real life, how people who so genuinely like each other can so fervently disagree, have such very different perspectives on the world.

your articulate post is, for me, like looking through a prism--we are looking at the same facts, but through different colorations and perspectives--borne of our different life experience, no doubt.

i respect those differences. i'm even open to having my mind changed, if i'm shown another point of view is reasonable. and even if i don't agree, i appreciate it that you post your views in a way that elucidates them instead of making attacks on others. i want to understand how others think, and why they think what they do. unless, of course, they indulge in ad hominem attacks, which i don't respect at all.

i don't know all the facts of the farm subsidy program. but from what i do know i suspect that we would agree that the government is responsible for hurting small farmers and ranchers. only the corporate farms and ranches get the big subsidies, the little guys never see it.

i really don't think our points of view about what happened with ranchers, or with the economics of selling pianos for that matter, are so different, larry.

i do disagree with you on the political points you made, and won't bother to go into that, because we just disagree too strongly.

but i don't happen to think that people should be given a handout by the government. i'm also one of those who has earned my keep through very hard work, and have gotten where i am the hard way, and i have never taken a handout, and i don't respect those who expect one. i've worked with welfare moms (as a children's mentor) and find their attitude that they can be on welfare and let the rest of us support them because they prefer to be a stay-at-home mom just flabbergasting.

i am open to learning something new, and this thread has been a fascinating economic and political education. i don't have strong views on the economics of selling pianos, btw, as i really don't understand the machinery of that market first hand.



i heartily agree. i think it is time to drop this thread and start a new one. it seemed to me that the discussion about authorized v. unauthorized dealerships was valuable. especially david b.'s comments about the niche specialty dealer interested me.

who here can explain how this is done in germany, with so many hotly competitive piano manufacturers, most of high quality, in such a small geographic region. do they have authorized v. unauthorized dealerships there? is it more common for dealers to sell many brands they are not "authorized" to sell? if it is different, how so? and what is the result in the marketplace?

i understand that in germany there is just an official price that everyone pays, and yet there is a lot of excellence, diversity, and competition. how does one account for this if larry's piano economics thesis is correct?

and, obviously, i think my own piano is king of the hill!

Thank you for seeing and understanding that it was *not* written with the intent of taking a swipe at you, Pique. Not even the part you quoted as a possibility. The sentence was purely a statement of my view, not an underhanded attempt to take it personal or make a swipe at you.

Now - everybody play nice or I'll have to send "Davey the Pomposity Slayer" to show you all just what a *real* crowd killer can do.....

Larry,

I did get a good chuckle out of your last comment . As for the rest of your post, some I agree with, some I don't. I wish we could go out for a few beers and discuss these issues. If not for anything else, it would make for some lively discussion .

Derick
(The capitalist with a conscience)

pique

Thank you so much for your understanding responses. Your gratitude fills my heart with gladness, truly. But I have much to reveal to you and to all, about my REAL values.



No, it cannot end until it fades away and though I would really prefer to steer clear of the political and religious, the former because it is in awful truth so banal (as I have so often proved in my own posts) and the latter because it is also in reality far too “plus personal” for a forum such as this. And yes, I’ll be getting around to pianos in this post because pique inadvertently reopened many doors.

I will always tend to side with the right in politics because I was such a pigheaded committed and idealistic leftist when I was young and saw the error in their crazy plans and the malice and hate inside most of their hearts. In truth, a hard lesson for those on the left to accept, that when the chips are really down, person to person, a person on the right is far more likely to care about someone else by giving actual real help, more than any government program could ever hope to do. I’ll leave it at that.

As for campaign finance reform, I’m going to offend some on the right for saying this, but if it is made to apply to EVERYONE including labor unions then I’m for it simply because it will tend to raise the political importance of the individual over that of the group. A political theorist, Theodore J. Lowi, not a rightist by any means, wrote about what he called “interest group liberalism” (in his book The End of Liberalism) wherein a bunch of people get together and pressure the government to do something for them, another group does the same, and so on and so on until real participatory democracy is lost.

Fact is, I’m not so much a rightist as a Constitutionalist and my true political loyalties have much in common with the Libertarian philosophy that the best government doesn’t have to rely on force to govern well.

It is not RIGHT that big agglomerations of power should have as much power of the government as they do. Those who cynically argue that the highest court in the land has said that money is free speech and that there’s no way to shut bigness out of public life are asking us to make of our political life nothing more than a titanic struggle between two behemoths who will in their lust and their greed feed on the rest of us til there is no individuality left. Without individuality there is no civilization, there is no democracy, there is no freedom, there is no music. The process is I’m afraid already well under way.

I read Derick’s Business Week article and found it informative. I played the website pique mentioned and passed it along to my 14 year old daughter for comment. She should remember these startling facts about the world as she wanders the mall with her friends in search of her next set of kewl shoes.

But there was a question pique asked that really interested me.



And here’s my answer; when one sits down at one’s piano and begins to play as only you or I can, there is no idealism to be reached for, the experience is THERE, right now, instantaneous and totally REAL. When one is able to realize with clarity the breathtaking achievements of some great master to the point that one is almost not conscious of playing as being played by transcendent forces, or even transcendent beings, to play the music, one is not trying for some ideal, one has achieved that state of being there that exists in few other human experiences.

Getting there, to be able to play a piece from memory, to be able to have the music play itself through you, that isn’t musical idealism either. In the process of learning, you are being plunged into the unique REALITY of each piece with its own particular set of musical and emotional contexts and contours.

If one is really lucky, like Arthur Rubinstein was, to be able to play for audiences and have their listening energy influence one’s own energy at the piano, then one is not idealized, one is REALIZED by the activity and that force and fact is objective reality not an idealized dream.

I have just finished memorizing the little waltz, La plus que lente of Claude Debussy, a perfect little jewel of parlor piano music from 1910 and the other night I was at a party and played it on a venerable old Mason & Hamlin grand. For a spit second we could have been in Paris in 1910, but those who knew the piece told me that it was really timeless. That to me seems the point behind all this fuss about pianos; the MUSIC that they can make and we, with our own two hands, can become at least for a few moments, immortal. For you see, all the shouting over political and religious issues will never accomplish what a single simple piece of exquisite piano music will accomplish. Music can melt the coldest heart, can cause grown men to cry openly, can move women to fainting, can stop wars! It can, it still can.

Here’s to all of you as you privately or publicly discover yourselves in one of the most real states one ever can, sitting behind your piano, and with your own two hands realizing that state of momentary immortality in music.

Never take a Red Man drinking. We have a totally different thought in mind when someone says "I'll have a Manhattan".....

Just some friendly advice - you might want to rethink that "Capitalist with a conscience" tag..... it might prove to be an unnecessary irritant to a capitalist who thinks you mean that you are the exception instead of the rule.

While I don't intend any disrespect to pique, the website that was posted (100 person village) is identified as a hoax on several hoax/virus sites. I even looked through my email archive and found 3 different versions with different statistics.

david b.: your description of the experience of playing the piano is breathtaking. and i think despite all the political, social, and religious differences within our little piano world, it must be that experience you describe that unites us in a common sympathy.

this evening i threw myself at my piano, like someone who had been starving for the past weeks. and i laughed at the idea of being addicted to this board. as addictive as this forum might be, the piano--or more precisely, the experience at the piano as described by david--is even more so.

i just want to know, how am i supposed to meet my deadlines with a seductress like the grotrian in my house? how do any of us get any productive work done?

sometimes, i feel like it is really the only thing i want to do in life.

this is not saying that the caliber of my playing in any way reflects my feelings about the instrument--as some of you will no doubt find out if i ever make it to the pnw piano party!

bravo on an exquisite rendition of the experience, david.