I don't know if it's just me, but I associate certain brands of piano to a gender. Do you have the same experience? This is my list:

Male: Charles Walter, Sauter, Kawai (slightly), Grotrian (slightly)
Female: Estonia, Perzina, Yamaha (slightly), Shigeru, Petrof
Neutral: Fazioli, Steinway, Baldwin, Bluthner

I always see Yamaha as a male. I dont know why!

I guess ask what the Germans say. Der, die or das.

mason & hamlins - definitely masculine, machismo
schimmels, bechsteins - masculine
bosies, chickerings, faziolis, estonias - feminine
grotrians - metrosexual
steinways - can go both ways

I have stated my opinion elsewhere that all pianos are female. That having been said, I have always maintained sufficient good taste and decorum to desist from getting down under the sounding board and checking for myself.

If I am incorrect in my assumption, then I suppose one could either, as you have done, Jason, characterize certain brands as male of female--or certain size ranges. A good case could be made that concert grands, based on their size or the volume of their bass voice are male--whereas baby grands and uprights, by the same criteria, are female.

On the other hand, if you walk down the aisle at any Wal Mart, you are likely to encounter as many women as you do men--who approach 5 feet in width and 1,200 pounds in weight.

But I think the greater question is whether the United States Constitution would permit government subsidy of sex-change operations for pianos as a fundamental right.

Cheers, on what is apparently starting out as a slow news day.

Russ

I think the gender of a piano is based on the player's perception and nothing else.

Women, when assigning gender to a piano tend to refer to it as him, and men, including myself, tend to refer to the same piano as her.

This is not universal of course and I am not trying to make any statement about any person's particular thoughts. This is only a generalization based on my personal experience.




Thank you Russ. THIS is the really important issue that we should be discussing in this thread.

Got to agree with Rich Gal(assini) here!

The tendency to assign a gender follows from the anthropomorphic tendencies of many piano shoppers and owners.

Those who ascribe to the "Buy the one that sings to you" mantra obviously will assign an opposite sex designation. Ditto (in most cases) for those who advise "Buy the one that you love".

It's hard to be sure with the crowd who say "It spoke to me" because of the 'it' reference and the tendency of both sexes to speak. Perhaps if the tone of voice were included in the description (it shrieked, it screamed at me, it whispered in my ears, etc.), things would be easier to figure.

Of longish grand fans who speak glowingly of such instruments as "beasts".....the less said the better. Delving into the details of such an arrangement serves no useful purpose.

Finally, those who routinely report being blown away or blown off the bench, or refer to piano X blowing piano Y out of the water, are less into anthropomorhism (one assumes), viewing pianos as either primal forces of nature or instruments of war.

tur(andot) is a wise man.

A native speaker of a language with grammatical genders would associate a piano (or another major product, such as a car) with the grammatical gender of the brand name.

So in Polish: Walter, Sauter, Grotrian, Petrof, Steinway, Baldwin, and Bluthner would be male; Estonia, Perzina, and Yamaha would be female; while Kawai, Shigeru, and Fazioli would be neutral (the latter one not strongly, because Fazioli is also perceived as an Italian male name).

Speaking about piano brand names: I read long ago that when the Polish piano factory Fibiger was nationalized after WW2 and changed its name to Calisia, which is the old Latin name for Kalisz, the city where the factory was located, they were making good sales in various countries except for Scandinavia.

As it turned out, that was because the word "Calisia" in one of the Scandinavian languages was absolutely inappropriate as a piano brand.

Anyone here who knows those languages and can confirm?

Thanks J.A.S.! I want you to teach me Polish!

Yes, I speak them all, and have never even heard the word Calisia.
Another apochryphal story.

reminds me of the urban legend about the Chevy Nova selling poorly in Spanish-speaking countries because its name, spaced no va, literally translates to "it doesn't go."

My piano that used to be a reproducer has been neutered, so it is an "it."

Thanks, Rich--it did seem appropriate in the context of gender identification.

I think of most pianos as feminine, but I have to agree with some of the suggestions for masculine (M&H in particular... definitely masculine).

Only slightly OT: this reminds me of one of my favorite comments I've ever read on this board... somebody somewhere said they think of a Steinway B as a race horse and a Bosendorfer as a Percheron. Brilliant.

Hehe, my teacher's 40 year old Yamaha (which has been lovingly cared for for all that time) is a she. Her name is Bessie.

Bluthner sounds huge and imposing - I think of it as a male - Volodos comes to mind =p

My old Knabe was, too. I had no idea it used to be a player until my tuner told me. I wondered what had happened to the player mechanism, and it turned out the piano suffered from PMS. (Post Moving Syndrome).

My piano's have all been females, and they have all had names. My current is "Anastasia." I didn't pick the name, my piano teacher (a bit eccentric) said that she knew immediately when she "met her" that her name was Anastasia. It stuck.

Interesting, I was actually close to putting Grotrian into both male and female, but thought it will be confusing.

I went to Darrell Fandrich's today and tried a few other brands, without checking under the board, here is my list:

Feurich: Strongly masculine.
Fandrich and Sons (grand): male
Steingraeber: male
August Forster: female

My hardman peck spinet is female of the dog species.

Surprised no one has linked to Kenny's humorous photo of his Bluethner (or was it a Bosie?) I know he posted it here once.

Kenny, where are you, anyway?

Fazioli - male athlete on steroids
Mason & Hamlin - male
Sauter - male
Steinway - male
Grotrian - male
Shigeru - Neutral
Steingraeber- neutral
Bluthner Neutral
Estonia - Neutral
Ibach - female
Pleyel - female
Bösendorfer - female

My short chubby toddler grand (1937 Kurtzmann) is Dolly after Dolly Dimples a famous and rather pretty circus fat lady. My grand old madame of a square (1887 Mathushek)is Samantha, a classy lady, a bit blowsy now but who still knows how to charm.