OBE on the left

Had the great pleasure of meeting and tuning for a very famous classical musician recently. His apartment in NYC has a Bosendorfer model 200 that really needed some attention. Casually displayed on the bookshelf were just some of his many awards and honors. Just off to the left was his Kennedy Center Honor, looking like he had just taken it off.

He was a very nice and gracious guy, and a cat lover to boot! With only some exceptions, my experience is that the bigger they are, the better they are.

It’s been a challenging period, to say the least. It has been a brutal winter in NYC and it has taken time to get the pianos stabilized and sounding their best. We’ve got a pretty incredible selection, including concert grands from Bosendorfer, Bluthner and Steingraeber, a Bosendorfer 225, a beautiful Bluthner model 2 and over 25 other pianos, both grands and verticals. I have really enjoyed becoming more familiar with these makes and in particular getting familiar with how to get the best tone. I’m reminded once again how much difference careful regulation can make in tone, without even touching the hammer. I’m also reminded once again how differently they different makes respond to voicing and why, to get the most idiomatic tone from each make, you have to be flexible in your voicing technique. But, the basics apply across the board, including string seating and careful fitting of the hammers to the strings.

If you’re in NYC, please stop by (205 W. 58th St)

While I’m in good company (Bob Popyk and the Perez’s) my presentation is Sunday morning, so PLEASE come so I won’t be talking to myself. I’ve got to thank my friend Dennis Houlihan, President of Roland US, for connecting me with NAMM in such a great way.

My topic is Artist Relations for Fun and Profit. I’ll be talking about strategies and tactics for expanding your stores involvement with professional musicians for building traffic and sales. I really believe that a smart piano dealer will understand the importance of building a reputation for being knowledgable and supportive of the local performing arts community. I also know from experience that many dealers really don’t know how to effectively work with serious performers, whether they are national artists or local musicians. There are some simple but important factors to keep in mind, the most important being that you must create a good environment if you want the best musical experience.

If you’re at NAMM, please join me!

Today is March 31, the last day of my current direct involvement with Bosendorfer. It’s been great, thanks to everybody involved, but I’m itching to move on.

Stay tuned.

I'm number 1 to somebody

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I travel a lot, so I should be a prime customer for a number of travel related companies. If I had a bigger travel budget things might be different, especially when it comes to hotels and maybe air lines. However in this business one has to keep travel costs down. For that reason I am rather brand ambivalent except for a couple of cases.

Hertz
I really won’t price shop for a car rental because Hertz is so very good at getting me into the car and out of the lot. Hertz is usually more expensive but the discount I get from my status at one particular airline helps mitigate the difference. I’m also a Gold member which gives me no price advantage but is the secret to the easy in, easy out benefit. I go right to be bus, get dropped right at the screen which tells me where my car is. Show my license on the way out and I’m gone. I have a membership at another leading car rental company but even then I have to wait while the type endlessly on the computer…what are they typing anyway, they already have my info.

Hertz trains their people well. They aren’t warm and fuzzy in a fake way, just crisply efficient and cordial. I’ve had a couple of hiccups here and there. Their staff at DCA really have not gotten the memo on how to treat customers. Going to the Gold desk in that airport garage means getting the impression that you are really bothering them and taking them away from whatever they are doing at the computer terminal. Once is a fluke, twice is a pattern.

All rental cars are older and crummier now but they spiff me once in a while with something nice. I’ve got an Impala with a sun roof for this week of distance driving, but the AUX input jack doesn’t work. Oh well.

Hotwire
Ok, this is not the brand loyalty the hotels want me to have, but I book all hotels through Hotwire. Once you figure out the ratings (never ever go with 2 stars) you can get from adequate to really nice hotel rooms for real bargains. Not always the same bargain each time but I can really count on them to set me up right. I wish they did international hotel bookings.

Airlines
I used to be loyal to United until they very convincingly sent me a clear message that they just don’t care about customers. Now I have a slight preference for Delta as long as the costs aren’t dramatically different. Flying in economy however, no matter the airline, is an ordeal to be suffered through.

Hotels
At my budget level I cannot justify spending hundreds of dollars for one night stay, even though the nicer hotels are definitely worth more than the mid-level ones. With Hotwire I can almost always keep it under $100, often well under$100. For example I am right now spending 4 nights at a Hyatt for $89 a night. Stay away from 2 stars, though.

Hotels part 2
If I could, I would probably have loyalty to both Hyatt and Hilton. Both have been very comfortable when I’ve stayed there, with good staff and efficiency. Hyatt seems slightly more styled which appeals to me. This is in severe contrast to the exceedingly dull Marriott chain.

I am truly annoyed when any hotel charges me separately for internet access. In this day and age that is like having to purchase water at the sink separately. Apparently “delighting the customer” is relative and stops at messing with a cash cow. Wingate is great in that regard. Try them if you find them in their rather limited area.

Bose
I was given a pair of their Quite Comfort noise canceling headphones a couple of years back and they completely changed by flying experience. Anything, from the movie, to my ipod, to nothing is bathed in a blanket of quiet. The grinding of the engines is off in the distance, it is wonderful. These things are not cheap but they work great.

After having them for at least 2 years, long past warranty, part of the trim on the headband broke off. They still worked but my hair got caught every time I put them on. I called Bose hoping they had some kind of repair service. Imagine my surprise when they told me over the phone that they would replace them with the newer updated version! That made Bose first on my list when considering anything they make, which includes their iPod dock that I bought about a year ago. Before I had this experience I bought a competitor to their desk radio/cd system and I am regretting it. The clock never keeps time and now the alarm function stopped working. I am quite convinced that that would never happen with a Bose product and if it did, they would replace it before I had gotten the request out of my mouth.

More traveling, this time to the midwest, and more driving. First a visit to a new customer in St. Louis, then a long drive to Elizabethtown KY to visit the warehouse at Keyboard Carriage. This is about a 5 hour drive but it is through some very beautiful scenery. You have to love the look of the midwest, and being a Midwesterner, I do.

The next day, I not only drove back to St. Louis, but 2 hours further to Columbia. While on my way I decided to take a detour and drop in on one of my old homes, Jasper Indiana. You may remember that I worked for Kimball during the time Kimball owned Bösendorfer. Kimball has its headquarters in Jasper and the piano factory (Kimball, not Bösendorfer) was about another 30 minutes up the road in French Lick.

Jasper is characteristic of many small midwestern cities; an old time feel without a lot of progress, deep cultural connections, in this case German and a strong work ethic. I was with Kimball for 8 years and only spent about 2 of them in Jasper and that was over 20 years ago. For this reason I didn’t really remember much, including that Jasper has an old time city square! But that didn’t matter, I remembered drinking at the Schnitz and some friends that I haven’t seen for ages and did not look up this time…too short, but someday.

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Then another 7 hours in the car to visit the University of Missouri at Columbia. Here they have a beautiful 25 year old Bösendorfer 290 Imperial. Instead of being stuck in the basement jazz lab, it proudly occupies the stage in the small primary recital hall. This piano has been well cared for but really needs some routine maintenance, including new hammers, strings and a set of whippens. The problem with high end pianos is that the tone deteriorates very slowly so even though people still claim to love this piano, I know that what they are hearing is a mere shadow of how it should and could sound. It has gobs of sustain so again, there is a beautiful piano lurking under a worn out set of hammers.

The new technician there, Lucy Erlacher, is great and dedicated to the idea of tonal diversity, and we’re going to help her anyway we can.

The Graf Starhemberggasse facility used to the be the factory but now is mostly empty. The consolidation of space makes perfect business sense. The Salon on Bosendorferstrasse, in the back of the Musikverien will remain our primary presence in Vienna.

Voicing is often referred to as “tone regulating” which has a more clear meaning. It is the technique of adjusting the various parameters that affect the tone of the piano. This of course includes regulation of the action and tuning. But most people consider voicing to be the manipulation of the density of the felt of the piano hammer. It is the image of the technician jabbing a tool with needles into each hammer.

A piano hammer is made of dense felt glued to the wooden hammer molding under extreme pressure. Voicing of a well made hammer (more on juicing later) mostly means slowly decreasing the tension and density by, yes, jabbing it with needles. However, it also means making the shape of the hammer correct, and in my opinion most importantly, making sure the hammer strikes all 3 strings of the unison at exactly the same time. It is only after all the other aspects affecting tone have been adjusted can you start doing something destructive like needling.

Most people approach piano maintenance like their dental work; they wait until something is wrong or broken. A high end piano will benefit much more from regular and incremental maintenance and ideally the technician you have taking care of your fine piano will approach it this way; doing a little regulation and voicing every time he or she tunes so there never is a big problem. You’ll also get much more pleasure for a longer time out of your piano. Piano tone, like tuning, degrades very slowly. So slowly that you don’t really notice it until something, like that twangy note in the treble or the fact that things don’t repeat the way they used to, jump out at you. When a piano is brought back to tonal shape after a long decline, the reasons you fell in love with the piano in the first place often come rushing back. “How did I put up with the way it was sounding” is often the lament.

Remember, we talking high end pianos here. A concert piano is continously maintained, ideally tuned every week whether it is played or not and I’d like to encourage you owners of concert level pianos to consider the same. Ok, maybe every week is too much, but every 6 weeks shouldn’t be and your tuner should work out a special pricing arrangement for you. In the process, voicing and regulation can be kept at near factory levels…ah bliss.

What is the HEPE? It’s the combination of an outstanding musical instrument and a product of supreme craftsmanship. The instrument needs to be one that is capable of giving an artist (at any level) a tool for exploring the real power of music to create and influence emotions. The product of craftsmanship should be associated with a long and noble history of the science and craft of piano building. The HEPE is best when experienced by a musician (of any level) but is not at all limited to those who play themselves. The craft aspects should appeal and give satisfaction to those that don’t play and the availability of a high quality musical instrument means that music can enter the scene at any moment.

Notice that I did not say the “art” of piano building. To me, Art refers to emotional communication and while a silent piano does stir the emotions in some of us, the real magic comes when a high quality piano is being used as a tool by a fine pianist. Therefore piano building is less Art and more high level craft. The only exception is in veneer and casework. The very best veneer work should, in the words of Don Bennett, “tell a story”. And boy, when done right, can it ever!

Veneer work