Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum What happened in 1980?

I had forgotten those! You could dial up the left hand from a menu and just pick out the melody. Suddenly everybody could play The Beatles' greatest hits.

I think that many factors were at work, some of which were already mentioned above. I do not think that the decline in the numbers of pianos sold was caused by the industry itself, however.

Some possible factors include:

1. The cost of credit. When I bought my first house in 1981, the mortgage was almost 15%, and this was the best available for people with good credit. Since many pianos are bought with borrowed money, the cost of credit has to have hurt the industry. It's one thing to borrow money to buy a piano, it's another to pay 15% a year to do it. It took consumer credit prices a long time to recede. By the time they did, people were out of the habit of buying pianos.

2. Pianos are luxury items. You may want one, but you don't need one, not like you need housing and a car, although there was a proliferation of less expensive cars around this time, and the car industry was hurting even though cars are more necessary than pianos.

3. Relative cost. The cost of EVERYTHING went up after the oil crises of 1973 and 1979--parts, transportation, manufacturing, etc. This had nothing to do with Jimmy Carter, incidentally, and costs and prices have never returned to their pre-oil-crisis levels. This had to do with OPEC (1973) and the US oil companies (1979).

4. Changes in how people entertained themselves. The electronic media started to take over our lives. Gradually, through the 80s and 90s, the relative cost of electronics like televisions started on a steep decline, and more and more people had them. Families no longer sat around playing the piano to each other, if they ever really did.

5. The growth of the rock n roll industry. Instead of playing music, kids were interested in listening to it--and it wasn't piano music they were listening to. If they played music, they wanted to play electric guitar. And their parents, baby boomers like me, could afford to indulge their wishes. Everyone's attention spans went down, and how long something lasted stopped mattering that much.

6. When I was in college, we often sat around the common room listening to classmates play the piano. This kind of activity has ended, and students go back to the TVs, etc., in their rooms or to parties. When I was in college, no one had a TV (yes, they had been invented) because we had no money, and parties were rare. College kids these days seem to have plenty of money. . . .And while I am on the subject, I walked barefoot in the snow to school, uphill both ways, when I was young!

Just some thoughts. It is also, in my view, pointless to analyze the piano industry separately from other industries, although I have to admit that I am not sure which industries to pick for purposes of comparison.

In any event, I don't think that the piano industry has been guilty of its own destruction. To the contrary, all the developments with computerized pianos show an industry trying to keep up with modern tastes. As Luddite myself, I would never allow the installation of a computer in my piano, though!

I always thought that when people began to pay $50,000 for a car it became a real watershed mark. The base price on the cheapest model was only about 4 or 5000 then- a car battery was $30 most of my adult life, and now $100 as the oil companies try to keep the gap between their interests and electrics very wide.

But when some people started paying 50K for a Porsche or Mercedes or BMW, and the American luxury cars had to follow and have similarly priced models, then the cheaper models also started to raise across the board quickly. 5000 quickly became 8, 10, 12 etc. What is it now for the cheapest model new car? About 19 or 20 K I think- more than I paid for my house.

You can blame the foreign cartel, but personally I believe it's largely been that our own oil companies have more taken over the ENTIRE corporate landscape, and cars are a pricey way to extract corporate "taxes" out of their own labor.Also then came mandantory insurance, higher housing costs and a tighter rate system over it all- the CEO mindset.

Retail rent is higher in the post-computer days, and the big corporations control it to the detriment of the smaller independent business person, while the universities only fuel that particular situation with every ambitious class of MBA.

Beyond all that- Yes, I think the proliferation of other instruments- particularly the guitar- which became MUCH CHEAPER through it all, has hurt the piano world, and the rise of world import and exporting there continues to drive the prices down at the lower end.

Interesting.

See my comments above. Yawn.

The active dismantlement of the New Deal began in earnest in 1980 and continues to this day. This has been pursued by both Republican and Democratic administrations. Pianos being a luxury item are much affected by this. This is in addition to other reasons stated in this thread.

See my comments above - again.

Yawn.

I looked at your comments above. They are still mistaken.

Do you think the data for digitals includes all digital sales, or just those from piano dealerships? For example, would it include $600 keyboards you'd find at Guitar Center or Costco? Because I think those are the ones I see around most.

I agree with BrianDX. Sadly, and to the detriment of the the forums, it seems to be creeping into more and more threads lately.

But let's put political and economic assumptions aside, because they aren't relevant. Why? Because the downward trend depicted starts at the zenith of U.S. piano sales in 1978, when Jimmy Carter (D) was president, and continues through Ronald Reagan (R)'s eight years, George H.W. Bush (R)'s four years, Bill Clinton (D)'s eight years, and George W. Bush (R)'s eight years. The data end in 2007, but I haven't read about a recovery in the piano business since then, so I presume the trend is still the same (i.e. through Barack Obama (D)'s presidency). Sure, there have been economic circumstances that have impacted sales and caused the line to "wiggle" a little, but none is responsible for the overall downward trend. In fact, the downward phase of 29 years is effectively as long as the "steady growth" phase (31 years) that preceded it.

So, to summarize, the downward trend has lasted through times of both recession and prosperity, and through the administrations of both Republicans and Democrats. So, political and economic factors can't account for the overall trend.

I don't get your point. It's not like it was a hidden agenda. It was the campaign platform of Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, etc.

If you think the elimination of support for education, social welfare and the labor movement, with the subsequent movement of jobs overseas had no economic effect, then I don't know what to say.



But they definitely are a factor, you must agree.

We need Presidents like Richard Nixon again, who could play the piano!

http://youtu.be/MCsGSMze_6Q?t=1m20s

And Harry Truman.

How about Carlo, from "My Man Godfrey"?

As for your comments above, and rude yawning-

YOU are the one who first ascribed a Presidency and meaningless two party focus to the discussion. I'm talking about seasons and movements that I've personally seen. Once any of it breaches the "watch' of any certain like minded rule- the OTHER President's men, Elton John might say- then, There You Go Again talking about your vast perspective from Fox news of Michigan.

Did you remember routinely looking out your window to see people scrounging for food or cans in the dumpster outside, or having to defecate behind it because they didn't have the required quarter to get in a toilet in yuppying Hollywoodland in the '80s when the movie star ruled? I do.

I saw that yesterday.

+10!

Retsacnal

Nice topic, opening post, graphics, and patience. It's been fun to read.

My window is pretty narrow and may not even apply, but it is coincidental to a degree.

A shift in US educational priorities started quietly at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. It picked up momentum during the Space Race with the Soviet Union, but it didn't really hit home until the late 70's when no one in academia could explain the falling test scores of high school students in the SAT, a college admission test that had been in place since the 1920.s

There soon after came a flood of studies that suggested US students were falling behind students in other developed countries in math and science competency. The research was based once again on test scores. Schools started to rethink time dedicated to the arts (as at least one poster mentioned) and beefed up math and science curriculum. Colleges responded by mandating minimum math and science course completion as a condition of admission.Then came the deluge of honors classes, AP classes, and test prep centers at the high school level, and the ascent of engineering as the college major of choice.

I think the parents of young children at that time, the managers of their children's schedules, began to de-value what their own parents had valued, and as if usually the case, the pendulum swung too far.

Carlo, from "My Man Godfrey"
Right?

For a curmudgeon you are pretty funny.

Now that I've read this entire thread, I would agree. It was a combination of factors. I see it from my view point which started in 1967 with the arrival of our Baldwin Hamilton. We could not afford one, but Grandma purchased it as a Christmas present. We started lessons right off. I was given a head start because at that time at age 9 you could take lessons on a musical instrument of your choice. I picked the string bass and enjoyed playing it through high school in many community orchestras, of which all were looking for bass players.
When I started high school I was selected as the pianist for our Stage band and Show Troupe. We performed up and down the State about 60 times a year, a big commitment that lasted 3 years. Our high school had a theater and a few Baldwin Hamiltons but no decent grand to perform on. I recieved quite the education playing every old piano at every school, Lions, Rotary, PAL, Sons of Italy, you name it we played it. I got to know which pianos I liked and which I didn't and which were useless. The first time I sat a 9 foot Baldwin it scared me to death, I hated it. By Senior year I had had enough and was able to obtain a used Wurlitzer 120 electric piano. No more playing out of tune broken pianos. My graduation present in 1975 was a Rhodes. By then we had Whipped Inflation Now ( ) and the music program I had started at nine was history. Bill Graham held the SNACK concert. Music education was no longer important. This might be the main reason for the decline. How much of an impact did the lack of institutional sales have on Baldwin? Add in that Yamaha was bringing it in terms of competition. Schools that were buying pianos now had an attractively priced option. Was it an evil plot to turn us all into engineers? Well looking at things today I doubt it..but I regress. My first post high school job was as a "pumper" for Home Entertainment, selling organs! In late '75 they were not really selling many organs and I think the whole business was a front for a money laundering operation. The Prophet 5 was introduced in 1980? I bought one, $4,500 . That began my slide to the dark side, I'm in recovery now. The first real working musicians synth was the Yamaha DX7. However I purchased an upright Young-Chang in 1983? It was cheap and I only had to finance a small amount @ 14%. Take a look where home mortgage rates were to get an idea if many families had extra for things like a piano. I think things have turned around a bit from those dark days that brought us "disco inferno". I wonder if I can use real time auto pitch correction for an out of tune piano with out too much lag?

Edit: Politics might influence all this a bit. October 17, 1979, the day our Federal Government decided that to push their propaganda they needed to "control" all public education. 35 years later I see the wreckage of this decision. Oh yeah for all you political types, It was under a democrat...but seriously in my mind they are ALL the same.