Did you know that approximately half of the pianos produced worldwide come from factories not older than 10-20 years?  Especially in China but also in Malaysia, Indonesia and other South East Asian countries innumerable piano factories have popped up just within a few years. The advantage is obvious: with a new production site you can start at zero without obstacles of outdated machines and inefficient procedures. However, also the factory workers start out at zero and that can very likely be a problem when building pianos.

Grand and upright pianos are remnants of a pre-industrial era and therefore do not lend themselves easily to mass production. Of course,  one can assemble a piano utilizing modern wood cutting tools and machines- but one then still has only an arraignment of parts. Even the oldest piano manufacturers have modern factory equipment and production schedules but continue to rely in many important areas of the piano manufacturing process on craftsmen reagarding a wide varietey of subtle choices that no machine or computer program  can analyze. Only the craftsmen discerns those choices and creatively utilizes them. Thus, each instrument receives its unique  and singular “soul”. This does not go to say that  mass produced instruments should be frowned upon- however, usually they are missing that special “somtehing”.

It is clear that the newcomers in our craft  do not have the luxury of a couple of centuries or at least a few decades of developing their instruments and their craftsmen. Thus the going slogan is : “the smart one imitates”. New  factories aquire instruments of leading and estabished  manufacturers in an effort of reverse- engineering. However many  European manufacturers,  our factory included, do not care about such  things. They make take an instrument apart in the tiniest bits of its parts, and expose it to every kind of torture and yet the piano steadfastly refuses to give away its secrets. Most of the critical information for building a piano is not visible or measurable at the finished instrument.

A little more annoying seems to be the urge of mostly Chinese copy-cats when it comes to exterior design. All you need  is a brochure or a picture from the internet and you are ready to go . We will see how the market will react to this kind of design piratery.

It remains unchallenged that in order to produce  a good piano you need the will to do it and the courage to ask for the price required to cover the cost. Our colleagues from Japan have shown us that they have come to build formidable pianos but their prices are a far cry  from the bargain deals that they were some 20 years ago! Our beloved good piano seems  to successfully refuse to become a mass merchandized commodity. And that continues to make the piano so fascinating and endearing.