NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) is the big musical instrument industry trade show. Technically it’s held twice a year, but the big show is every January in Anaheim, California.

Anybody and everybody connected with the musical products industry shows and attends NAMM. This includes pianos of all price points, drums, brass and wind instruments, guitar picks, amps, guitars, disco fog machines, makers of fine hand crafted conducting batons and everything, I mean everything in between. It’s a huge show and the Anaheim Convention Center is one of the only convention centers in the country that can hold it.

NAMM is not a consumer show.  Manufacturers display their products and sell them to retailers, who will later sell them to consumers. Therefore it is a wholesale show, not open to the public. Thank god, because it is busy and crazy enough as it is. That being said, there are always professional musicians of all caliber visiting, including an annual visit by Stevie Wonder. Fans line up for autographs by people I don’t recognize and the hallways are decorated with colored mohawks, chains and fishnet, as well as business suits. Guess which group I’m in?

It’s a busy week, usually arriving on Monday and spending Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday setting up the display and getting ready. Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday are show days with Sunday usually when we get a chance to visit the other booths and catch up with friends, enemies and competitors.

More about NAMM part 1

Yamaha has had a high end “craft built” line for a number of years and has been a very serious builder of concert pianos for decades. The concert grand, the CFIII (CF3) has undergone a number of iterations and experiments, resulting in the model CFIIIS that has been the flagship for the last 8 years or so.

This year Yamaha is unveiling, both at NAMM and at the Frankfurt show,  the newest version called the CFX (X, not 10) and 2 smaller models with the same construction techniques, the CF4 and CF6. While there was a lot for Yamaha to talk about at NAMM this year, they did focus a lot of attention on these new pianos, hosting a press conference at which Mitsuru Umemura, the President of Yamaha Corporation global spoke and pianist Frederic Chiu performed. The performance (short but effective) was repeated at the Yamaha Dealers breakfast on Friday.

NAMM, oddly enough, is not the place to evaluate pianos and the huge, diverse Yamaha display makes it essentially impossible. Besides, talking about piano sound is a sure fire way to drive pretty girls from the room and make enemies. That being said, I will make a couple of observations.

Yamaha makes a really really good concert piano. They are very serious builders and use some hand techniques that they don’t even use at Bosendorfer (hand chiseling the rib tails).  They are looking for what I call a “high rim tension” sound, with power and overtones. But they also look for a lyrical sweetness and sustain and are very comfortable trading some raw power and noise for these characteristics. This combination makes the end result very pleasing and flexible as long as your standard of comparison is not the typical rip-your-face-off, noise-is-good standard that many competition participants seem to prefer these days.

Knowing that NAMM was not the place to evaluate pianos,  I was, as expected,  unimpressed with the sound at the press conference. It was  very nice but no special characteristics could be heard in that environment. The next day the piano was moved to a different room and set on a 4 foot high stage for the Dealers Breakfast. Frederic played the same repertoire (Chopin and his own Prokofiev transcription) but the effect, at least on me, was quite different. I was also sitting in the first row which helped. Here the characteristics and color really came out more and I was very impressed. This is not some Steinway wanna-be, thank god. This is a concert piano with a real personality and range of colors.

The smaller sizes seem to share the tonal characteristics. One interesting construction feature is that the 2 smaller pianos have “open window” pinblocks where the top surface of the pinblock is exposed, rather than hidden below the plate. The concert grand does not have this feature. The concert grand on the other hand exhibits holes drilled in the bass bridge which is a characteristic of high end european concert pianos but has not, at least in my memory, appeared on Yamaha pianos before.

No single detail makes a piano but there is really something important here. How it is accepted remains to be seen but I take my hat off to Yamaha for pursuing an alternative concert piano with such determination.

Yamaha has offered 2 smaller sizes of crafted pianos, called the S4 and S6 (6′3″ and 6′11″ respectively). One of the complaints about the marketing of these pianos is that they look exactly like the regular line Yamaha pianos. It is thought that potential customers were turned off on spending $20,000 to $30,000 more on a piano that looks exactly like a neighbors much cheaper instrument. Kawai addressed this by giving their upper end a different name, a sort of Toyota/Lexus approach. Yamaha addressed these issues with some very interesting case details, including a unique pointed arm and unusual pedal lyre.

Click on any of these photos to see it larger.

The other interesting fact is that one would logically assume that the CF4 and CF6 would replace the S4 and S6  but no, Yamaha Japan feels compelled to offer all 4 models. Yamaha Corporation of America has elected to import only the 2 new CF models leaving the S series to the rest of the world. Good decision, I think. The S series are very nice but having 2 separate lines is much too confusing to the market.

So now you have a major Japanese piano maker with a proven high end approach owning and taking marketing and sales responsibility for a 180 year old Austrian maker of what is generally referred to as one of the worlds finest craft built pianos; what happens next?

My prediction is that good things will come out of this for both companies but the road will not be pot hole free.

1. Yamaha understands the high end piano world.

Yamaha has beaten their collective heads against the entrenched  base, prejudices and the occasionally less than honorable marketing techniques of the current industry monopolist and they are deeply aware of the sensitivity that surrounds the Bosendorfer brand identity. They have repeatedly stated that they plan no changes in Bosendorfer manufacturing and but will have to take some steps to ensure the continued viability of Bosendorfer as a semi-independent entity.

Yamaha also understands, at least intellectually, the culture of Bosendorfer distribution. There currently is clear and easy, usually 1 person, communication between the dealer and Bosendorfer for all issues, including inventory, service, credit and marketing. In addition, the brand attributes of Bosendorfer are subtle and complex and take a great deal of credibility to convey with any effectiveness. This credibility does not come from simply reading a sales guide, but from background, experience and dedication.  Yamaha knows that this culture is not something to be taken lightly or duplicated easily and has gone out of their way to ensure that as much of this culture as possible is maintained. They have stated clearly that being a Yamaha dealer has no bearing on whether or not one becomes a Bosendorfer dealer and the reverse applies as well.  This has calmed most of the Bosendorfer dealer network and helped them adapt a cautiously positive attitude.

2. The Yamaha sound and the Bosendorfer sound are very different

Yamaha is taking the “high rim tension” approach which results in a very different sound than the Bosendorfer low rim tension ideal. This means that these two concert pianos sounds do not compete with one another but are actually quite complementary. Within one corporate presence, one has access to two different approaches to piano tone, both of which are carefully considered, developed and supported.

3. The world is changing

Presence in concert halls with classical music performers means less and less each year. The  marketing of the dominant company in the concert world  is increasingly falling on ears that have either heard it all before or don’t care. Building fine pianos is one thing, having brilliant marketing is another and in this industry, the 2 do not combine in one company. The challenge will be to grow the market, or take market share, in new creative ways and there is are clear opportunities for this.

4. There are culture issues, both national and corporate

Bosendorfer is a small shop and Yamaha is a huge corporation. Bosendorfer dealers and customers are used to being part of a small family and Yamaha dealers are not. There is no way around this conflict as Yamaha integrates Bosendorfer into its logistic and administrative framework. The small shop feeling that Bosendorfer dealers currently enjoy does not have to disappear completely, but there is no question that some of it will. That may not be all bad, but it won’t all be good.

Yamaha is used to large numbers, corporate style reporting and a well proven formula for selling and distributing its many products. There is a part of Bosendorfer, for better or worse, that is still stuck in the 1800’s. This results in a feeling of inbred superiority that prevents the company from seeing a clear reflection in the mirror and from accepting that what worked for Ludwig Bosendorfer may not all apply in the 21st century.  Some of this age old culture must of course stay and the continuing high quality of the pianos reflects this perseverance.  But there is a disturbing calmness with which Bosendorfer accepts some suboptimal customer focused behavior that sometimes takes the form of “well, yes, maybe we don’t do a good job with parts and supplies, but after all, nothing sounds like a Bosendorfer!”.

5. Bosendorfer has been here before.

Bosendorfer was a subsidiary of Kimball International for 30 years. Kimball was a much less logical fit than Yamaha and yet Bosendorfer prospered during those years. In fact I firmly believe that a great part of Bosendorfers strong brand recognition in North America today is a direct result of the marketing money Kimball spent 20 years ago! Kimball was a much better steward of the Bosendorfer brand than they were of their own Kimball piano brand, since that brand has disappeared. Bosendorfer survived and actually thrived during this period. The company has been through changes of ownership before and the culture and quality has been maintained.

6. Yamaha needs what Bosendorfer offers and vice versa.

Bosendorfer knows the true high end piano world and is in a very good place to help Yamaha expand the market for Yamaha’s craft built CF series. It will require some careful listening and thought, but the knowledge is there. Yamaha can bring a worldwide discipline to Bosendorfer, hopefully without crushing the small shop feeling that seems to include thinking that  Ludwig Bosendorfer is just out to a long lunch.

Yamaha does not need Bosendorfer to teach them anything about piano building and Bosendorfer does not need Yamaha to introduce efficiencies into its manufacturing. These are knee jerk reactions from people who really don’t understand either company. The potential is more subtle and more powerful than that.

Oh, and one more thing. Everything in these posts is my personal opinion, not a statement of any kind by either company.

In a nutshell, the S series are Yamaha’s concert level, hand made pianos. Made in a separate factory, these 3 models, the S4 (191 cn, 6′3″)  , S6 (212m, 6′11″) and CFIIIS  (275cm, 9′) (pronounced C F three S)  are made using techniques that would be familiar in any high end piano factory. Lots of hand chisels, a relaxed but intense pace working with materials that are chosen with less regard to the price.

The result is a piano with much more character, range and overall playing quality with the distinctive sound Yamaha strives for in their concert instruments.

I’m in Charleston SC right now (really great city!) and just heard Valentina Lisitsa play the Tchaikovsky 1 with the Warsaw Philharmonic. Valentina is a big Bosendorfer fan, and the feeling is mutual. But our bank of concert pianos can’t completely keep up with the vast range of her performances, and we don’t have a piano near Charleston.

So, imagine my surprise to see a shiny Yamaha CFIIIS on the stage. I’m rather partial to the CFIIIS, having managed the Yamaha US Artist Relations program for 10 years. Oh, and I also own one. I believe that the world needs more than one concert piano and Yamaha has worked very very hard to give the world one, with the resources to put it out where people can see (hear) it. You could call the world of concert pianos a zero sum game (any win for one is a loss for the others).  However, when faced with a monopoly, the game is somewhat different. If any instrument can fight it’s way onto the concert stage in a consistent and satisfying manner, then that instrument is good for all the ones fighting the same fight. The monopoly’s domain is slightly smaller and someone else has planted a stake.

This particular Yamaha was extremely satisfying. Plenty of power (remember, it’s Tchaik 1) with extraordinary tone and sustain in the soft lyrical parts. Yet, still with a sound of its own. Really nice piano…oh, and played by somebody pretty extraordinary herself!!

Why am I such a Bosendorfer geek?

In a nutshell, everything I know about high end pianos I learned from Bosendorfer. Seeing my first Imperial at the University of Wisconsin/Madison at the ripe age of 20 set me on my path. From then on, there was nothing so dramatic, spectacular and, well, downright sexy as that piano. The extra keys, the shape of the rim, the construction detail, the sound, there was nothing like it, especially not the Steinway D’s scattered about the building.

Later, to my utter amazement, I got the chance to work there. I was trained at the factory, did concert service throughout the US, and became the first US Service manager.

yes, I are a technician

…can you identify the world famous pianist on the right?

Then, again later, after a stint with a major East coast Steinway dealer and 12 years at Yamaha, I had the chance to come back, back home.

But, as I’m sure Ludwig Bosendorfer would approve of (not so likely with John Steinway’s ghost), I’m a high end piano guy first, which is why I’m exploring and talking about other high end manufacturers.

..me and some guy…

I worked for for Bosendorfer during the Kimball years.  That, in my opinion, was a much less logical combination than Bosendorfer and Yamaha and there were plenty of jokes (Kimball-dorfers, Bosen-balls). But, in fact, Kimball was a wonderful steward for Bosendorfer, probably a better steward of Bosendorfer than of their own brand. I believe that a large part of our US market presence today is due to the tremendous investment in Bosendorfer marketing that Kimball made 25 years ago. You can accuse me of smarmonisoty (I made part of that up) at this point, but I believe that Yamaha will be a similar steward (and I sincerely hope so for the sake of my career). There is an important aspect to the value proposition, beyond the simple profit and loss accounting, that just makes sense. Yamaha is deeply dedicated to the world of serious pianos and music making and has demonstrated that dedication for decades. They are committed to producing the highest level pianos they can. The S series (especially the concert grand) are supremely crafted pianos and Yamaha is backing that up with a substantial investment in very market segment specific marketing. Visit their Artist Services facility on 5th avenue in New York if you doubt the intensity of their commitment. Before you accuse me of being a syncophant, look into my background.  It is their intentions and, yes, their history that, I believe,  makes a critical difference.

Pending approval by the Yamaha board in late December. Then probably a couple months of closing.

I’m not going to say much, except that I believe that Yamaha is purchasing Bosendorfer with the best of intentions for preserving an important name in the piano industry and helping them prosper. I believe they will be good stewards of the company.

I’ve developed good concert prep kind of skills; regulation, voicing, finding and fixing noise, working under time pressure etc. What I am NOT is a rebuilder. I’ve voiced new hammers from scratch alot, but I really haven’t had much experience installing new hammers. However, considering how many people do it, how hard can it be?

So, about 3 years ago I decided to replace the original overvoiced stock Yamaha CFIII hammers with a new set. First decision, replace with what? Since I wisely figured that my first hanging job would not be my best, I bought a set from Wally Brooks…the make of which I really can’t remember (deep red underfelt). I know that is herasy to hammer buffs (what??!!! I suppose you don’t remember your MOM’s name either!!). I had Wally drill them and I hung on the original shanks.

Well, let’s just say my hammer hanging was pretty dismal. They sound pretty good, but the job is cosmetically challenged.  I’ve done a couple sets since then and my skills have gotten much much better, but that first set was an experience. Not as easy as it looks. I took one of Richard Davenports classes some time ago and he made it clear that to do a professional hammer hanging job takes alot of time, equipment and skill.