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I think that if the touch and tone were superb-AND you could demonstrably show significant improvement in durability and stability-a "new" piano could get traction in the market. The low profit margins of piano makers cannot support the R&D needed though.

For all practical purposes, Newton still holds in the visible world. All satellites and launches still use good old Newton and the Hamiltonian.
Einstein comes in mainly in particle research which 99.99999% of us don't understand ANYWAYS.

Of course Einstein changed the way we think about space and time but has no relevance to piano design, I think.

Del,
I am curious as to what would stop you from building your own prototype that you could then effectively use to demonstrate the superiority of the design changes you espouse? I would think that it would then be hard to argue, or call the inventor a "lunatic", once that kind of evidence is tangible and no longer theoretical. As far as the cost consideration, I know there are investors who put their money in a lot less exciting and less promising things than a revolutionary new piano design. Or maybe I am way behind here and you have already pursued this avenue?

All throughout history the established have resisted those wishing to push on to new frontiers. It's not for everyone and it takes as Del mentioned, vision. The abilty to see past the dollars and sense and just dream, make your ideas reality. It takes an idea and then a manifestation of that idea. Then it's most likely back to the drawing board for lot's of tweaking. This all take time and lots of money. It takes someone with the courage, drive and passion to fail 5 times (or more) before he gets it "right". These atributes are usually not present in corporate culture, and these types of risks are just not acceptable to the bottom line.

IMO the "new" piano will come from outside tradtional companies, and when it does, the mfgs. will scramble to put out a similar product in no time. They will then most likely market it better and produce it cheaper than the inventor who will end up making cigar box banjos. You will be able to watch the whole story played out on your Betamax. Real innovation seems to be at this time too risky.

Newtonian mechanics are, in general, adequate for predicting motion of the planets, but Newton's theory starts to accumulate small errors over time and as the mass of the objects in question get larger and larger. This quote, "For centuries Isaac Newton's law of universal gravitation worked well enough to explain gravity on Earth. But astronomers eventually saw discrepancies in the way larger objects such as planets interacted." can be found in this article.

May I now assume that a sluggish grand action is due to quantum mechanics in relation to Alpha Centauri IV?

This is certainly the most common reason I hear but increasingly I question its validity.

What, exactly, is the marketing risk involved in introducing a new product that is demonstrably superior to its predecessors and to its competition in many clearly identified ways. Marketing people in other industries would drool over the prospect. Yet in the piano industry we shrink back in fear.

I would suggest that this fear is traceable to the technical inability of most modern consumer-oriented piano makers to actually do something like this. To conceive a totally new product, design it, prototype it, test it and develop it and bring it to market. It is the unknown that gives birth to and feeds fear, not knowledge, competency and experience.

ddf

Not all that much R&D support is necessary. Besides, companies spend millions buying other defunct companies whose products have a known history of failure. A fraction of that would bring new product on line.

ddf

Well, it's a little bit like the "Lockhorns," Leroy and Loretta. They are, as usual, arguing when Loretta finally says to Leroy, "I don't know why you keep arguing about this...it's going to take more than facts to convince me."

Some have seen the results of modern design and have readily acknowledged that aesthetically and acoustically it is superior to what they are building but in the end their comfort zone wins out.

As for me, I've reached a stage in my life at which I should be well and comfortably retired but I couldn't quite bring myself to join the ranks of the elderly doing nothing of interest and challenge. So I took on one of the most challenging and wide-ranging projects of my career to date. Go figure....

ddf

Del,
R&D of significantly improved pianos using new materials would involve making several generations of models to gain the subtle proportioning elements that would ensure success. Unless you expected marketing to sell every prototype and accept the burden that would place on brand identity. Seems an unrealistic expectation to me.
Truly next generation piano technology could cost several million dollars over five to seven years. Thats just my seat of the pants guess-I don't think that is a small amount of R&D for the profits available now for piano makers-but maybe I am wrong!

Mr McMorrow,

I'm curious of your countering of Mr. Fandrich's postings. How many of your designs are currently in production by major manufacturers?

I'm not convinced that a "seat of the pants guess" would have the same validity as someone who is respected as one of the finest piano designers available anywhere.

You can have tons of torque and a thousand horses but can you get all of it through the tire and onto the road? I think each scale design has its optimum size.

I’m not sure how you could possibly spend that much developing a basic new piano design. I suppose if you really wanted to reinvent the whole thing the cost could get up there some but for a basic new design? No.

New design comes from experience and imagination. It gets crafted in the imagination of someone and then it gets worked out on paper or in software. Once the basic drawings are made rim presses—unless you want an automated, RF heated press—are relatively easy things to make. String frame patterns are a little more complicated but even these are not all that expensive to have made. In the United States a new pattern might run $25,000 to $30,000; in China less than half that. I’m still talking about relatively standard construction technologies so there is not much of an investment there. Unless you plan to start from scratch and construct a whole new factory. But then the money is in the factory, not the design or the prototype.

Both of the Walter grands were designed (by me) and brought into production by Walter, a company with no prior grand piano manufacturing experience, for a fraction of the sums you are talking about. Including presses, string frame patterns and most of the factory equipment. And in less than a year from start to finish for each. Sure, more time and money would have been nice but they got the job done. I have no idea what you think of these pianos but there are more than a few folks who consider them to be among the best pianos of their size available to date. Could the stand further refinement? Of course. But in the meantime they are making quite a few folks very happy.

New pianos are designed, prototypes are built and refined and ultimately produced. It’s a process. It doesn’t—at least shouldn’t—take millions to accomplish this. It is unlikely that any initial prototype will be exactly what the designer was after but, assuming he/she knew something about piano design—acoustical cause and effect—it should come pretty close. After suitable refinement and tweaking it goes into production. Will the result be perfect? Probably not but, after 150 years of production and continual refinement are Steinways perfect? Or Bösendorfers? Or any other piano in current production? I thought not.

I have a sign in my office that someone gave to me many years back: “In the life of every new piano there comes a time when you have to shoot the designer and build the piano.” There is some truth there.

The industry is running out of options here. You may have noticed that the piano market is shrinking. There are many reasons for this but at least one of them is that little or nothing is being done to entice its already established base back into the showroom. No industry of this kind can survive without evolving its product lines enough to bring existing customers back into the marketplace.

In the piano business it is even worse—Steinway’s major competitor is not some other piano maker but themselves! Their own old pianos are being rebuilt in large numbers and then being marketed directly against the new product. In many cases these rebuilt instruments outperform the new piano of the same model. This should not be possible!

Right now the Chinese market is dominating worldwide piano sales. Best estimates are that this will be true for some time to come but this market is also finite; the day will come when it also is saturated. As the market shrinks there will come a breaking point—a point of no return—when the market will no longer be able to support some of the specialty suppliers we depend on now. When this happens the cost of both piano making and piano rebuilding is going to go up by a lot! There will be no more “entry-level” pianos available and, ultimately, no more “entry-level” pianists. To be sure, this won’t be in our lifetimes—at least not mine—and there will long be a dwindling supply of old, used pianos but even so it is not a scenario I am willing to accept with equanimity. If I can do something about it before I leave this good earth I will.

There are always seemingly good reasons for doing nothing. I’m attempting to provide a few good reasons for doing something.

ddf

Del,
I did say "new" materials. But thanks for thinking of me.

In this case my own ambition would be to make pianos [my own or others..] perfect or at least 'more' perfect.

Why reaching another half-way point?

P.S. what does 'perfect' actually mean?

Luckily I'm not a piano designer...

Norbert

Excellent question. To bad there is not an equally excellent answer....

ddf

I don't work in the piano industry, but have worked in other industries all my life. I would have to say that the poor quality control, the acceptance of mediocre designs, the lack of will to make improvements, the unwillingness to use modern materials, the lack of real knowledge, and the continued promotion of dumb ideas in the piano industry is just amazing to me. I am currently reconditioning a 1956 Steinway M (my own piano). (Lest some of you scream that an amateur shouldn't touch a Steinway, I have been consulting with Larry Buck throughout the process, and he does any work that I feel is beyond my ability. Besides, based on my profession and orientation, I'm good at solving such problems.) It seems that almost everything in the piano that I touch has some problem. It truly astonishes me. In any other industry, a company that built a product with so many quality-control problems and poorly designed systems would be rewarded by being put out of business in short order.

Going back to the title of this thread the best pianos will not overcome physics. On the contrary they will use it in many ways to achieve some optimum balance. That is as close to perfection as anyone can get today but there is always tomorrow.

Though a piano is a physical object and must obey physical requirements in order to function well, there are emotional aspects to this business which often tend to overwhelm the basic physical realities.

In many ways spending the kind of money that the purchase of a nice piano requires, is really really hard, even for a dedicated musician to justify. After all, a piano has "no apparent utilitarian value". Its purchase can seem awfully close to frivolous pleasure seeking. Financial resources could/should, we are told, be spent more prudently on "less frivolous" items. You "need" a car to get to work...but you don't "need" a piano for basic day to day existence (except of course for those who, like me, who would shrivel up and lose compass without that sound to energize my life).

In order to convince even fine pianists to spend the kind of money required in the purchase of a fine piano, they need to get past the nagging voice labeling the purchase as "frivolous". This requires motivation which the recitation of engineering specs and manufacturing efficiency does not provide...folks need to have their mystique genes turned on.

We may be designers, rebuilders and fine physical technicians, but we can't remove ourselves from the emotional needs of our clients and customers, and their needs seem to require some level of mystique. This can tend to leave manufacturers and technicians needing to believe in the mystique and branding themselves...a bit of a grand neural loop.

All this tends to take us away from some very simple physical design facts into la-la land...but there you have it...its the human brain,and that's all we have to work with.

In this business, one ignores the need for mystique at one's own peril. The trick is to acknowledge the mystique openly, while focusing clearly on the physical realities that will actually help create instruments that will satisfy the essential musical needs that inspired a client to purchase a piano in the first place.

Jim Ialeggio

Jim Ialleggio,
Well said! Pianos are emotion communication machines for use by a very small subset of the population of communicators.

Roy123,
Good luck on your M. There is a bit of elegance to standard piano design in that there is seldom any superfluous parts, and all the woodworking considerations must also serve the sound and function. I have often felt that if you make the best woodworking decision you also get the best sonic result.