Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum Newspaper Article About Dwindling Piano Stores

According to my former Asian students physical punishment is still used by some.

"...in Montreal's subway, a few years back, they had a problem with bums squatting inside when in Winter. Some genius working for the city had the idea of blasting a viola da gamba music cd by Jordi Savall, and presto, the bums were out in no time..."

I suppose the bums had never heard of earplugs.

I do actually believe that it's not so much the noisy, discordant, tuneless and objectionable music of Marais and other 'classical' composers that their finely-tuned and honed ears can't abide, but the very fact that they are in the same vicinity as such music, and perforce, might be mistakenly assumed by those not in the know that they actually like (shock! horror!!), and be associated with, such dastardly uncool stuff.

However, it could well be that Stravinsky's Le sacre du printemps (especially the Sacrificial Dance) may be more suited to their profoundly profound musical sensibilities - as long as nobody tells them that it's actually a great work by a great 'classical composer'........

Let's face it, a piano is a big, expensive, complicated, complex, instrument and like any instrument takes many hours of study and practice a day to learn to play it well. Several piano dealers have gone out of business in recent years in my city and other music stores have either gone out of business or moved to different locations. The dealer who sold me my Yamaha seems to be holding his own. If he was only in the piano business for the $$, he and his partners sure "picked a hard row to hoe". I wish the three surviving piano dealers in town the best because people need a choice in brands, sound, action, and price. Although the variety can be confusing and frustrating to new piano shoppers as mentioned in another thread, I'm extremely thankful that there's so many different choices at so many price points. It makes it very difficult for dealers to provide buyers this variety and to prep and maintain all the pianos in the showroom, so I won't begrudge them their profit (too much).

Some really good news. The undergrad and graduate music program at our university is growing and all the piano classes are full. The students enrolled have very diverse backgrounds, ethnicities, and tastes. Hopefully, in the near future, they'll be shopping for an acoustic for their home or studio.

OT: I'll spend a quiet hour or two playing and practicing to celebrate the one year anniversary of my piano's delivery. Even though many of the PW folks wouldn't even give my piano a second glance, I'm still thrilled playing it and really love it's sustain. I'm trying to improve my ability to finger-peddle and my Yamaha really makes my meager skills sound decent.

Who says you have to learn to play it well… there is a lot of enjoyment in plinking a simple tune here and there or playing a little boogie-woogie.

I hope and pray that the piano industry will survive and the stores that have survived thus far will continue to survive. The glory days may well be over, but a lot of baby-boomers, like me, may become interested in learning to play the piano.

I was invited to perform special music at a local church in our community a few weeks ago. After the service, this elderly gentleman came up to me and complemented me very nicely on my piano playing. He said he had always wanted to learn to play the piano… I told him it was never too late. He said he was 90 years old and it was too late for him. I said it is never too late and offered to show him a few cords (Since that is about all I know).

Rick

Rick,

It's that enjoyment that keeps me going. If I had to wait to enjoy playing until I sounded good, Satan would be ice-skating.

I'm really glad you had fun and shared your music with the members of your local church. Hymns and boogie-woogie would be cool.

One thing about playing piano is that anyone can start playing, and sound reasonable within a very short time once they can play a few chords. Unlike someone learning to play the violin or cello, where it takes years (maybe months if very gifted) before they can play reliably in tune and not squawk.

I was skimming through a few old movies a few weeks ago (mostly British, from 1940-1960) and what caught my eye was how frequently there were scenes where people who met at a pub got together around the honky-tonk, and someone would sit down to bang out a popular tune of the time, and then possibly start singing too. And, especially in American movies from the same era, there was frequently a piano in the home scenes, not as redundant furniture, but being played by a family member.

If there are still such pianos in typical American homes (other than those of musicians and the rich), chances are that nobody plays them anymore (YouTube and iPods/downloads being preferred), and they are ancient cast-offs from previous generations, and just waiting to be disposed of. Just like those in the few pubs left in Britain which still have old honky-tonks, but with no-one able to play them.

Chatting to proprietors of some piano showrooms recently, they told me that more than half their current sales are to foreigners (Russians, East Europeans and Chinese who have moved here permanently, or temporarily on business contracts) rather than to home-grown British. The implication was that they were being kept afloat largely by immigrants.

I occasionally attend free lunchtime concerts hosted by a large London piano showroom where students from British music colleges (RCM, RAM, RNCM etc) play on a concert grand. This season, there are six concerts, but not a single one of the pianists are home-grown....