Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum Garrick Ohlsson on pianos

It's tough enough being a musician. Strong arm bully tactics are not a help.

It is tough being a musician, so musicians should recognize and appreciate what help they get.

If someone does a favor for me, I do not go around telling people that someone else is better that that person, because I would not like it if I did a favor for someone and that person ended up saying that someone who has done nothing for that person is better than me.

This is an honest question BDB. What favor are you referring to?

Don't be so sure - I was shocked when a manufacturer's representative recently contacted me demanding that I remove any comments on his pianos from Piano World which were not complimentary. Interesting way of doing business. But I'm certain that I'll never again recommend friends, students or relatives consider that brand again.

So, BDB, what actually happened, in detail, since you appear to know

Really? That surprises me because I really vented heavily about the same manufacturer not too long ago and I didn't receive any kind of demand.

Let me understand this clearly. You are talking about a dealer, not the main company itself. Right?

Were you threatened with legal action? You are certainly under no obligation to accede to a dealer's wishes that you bowdlerize or edit your posts here.

Nope - the company representative in this country. Not legal action - but a "demand". So any mention of that company or it's products, whether complimentary or not have been deleted.

The representative can make such a "demand" if they wish, but you are not obligated to comply. Your opinion is your opinion, and as long as you are not engaging in libelous behavior, I cannot see how a company can force anyone to change what they write. I seem to have missed something in your earlier thread.

backto study piano,
Which company is that? (Please PM me if you prefer not to divulge it on this forum).
I have my suspicions, but I might be barking up the wrong tree, or trodding on the wrong lump of sh*t (OK, I made the latter up....).

Ah, I see. I went back and looked at the thread in question. So you are saying that Yamaha or Kawai told you to delete your words. Interesting. Did you make the change, or did PW get threats? I realize I'm moving into dangerous territory here. Either way, we should know the rules. If a manufacturer can demand -- and get -- changes to our posts, that's interesting. We have had issues of this sort before, usually in response to threats of legal action against Piano World. But you say that you received no threat of legal consequences if you did not comply.

This seems rather OT from the Ohlsson story, I know. But I suppose the connection is the threat relationship.

Even if there is no specific threat of a law suit made, few posters would want to take the chance of being sued. Why go through all that potential hassle and expense?

OTOH if one looks hard enough through PW posts I think one can find some negative comments about almost every make out there, so it seems strange for a company or dealer to worry about this unless they thought the the comments were egregiously incorrect or were a negative subjective opinion stated as factual.

As I recall, Ohlssohn signed up for Steinway's artist program, which roughly says that in return for the artist's endorsement, the artist gets to use their pianos for the cost of moving and tuning. After he had done that, he picked one of their pianos for a concert in New York and it was delivered. Then he gave an interview, where the interviewer noted that he had a Bösendorfer. Ohlssohn called it the Rolls Royce of pianos in the interview. Steinway heard of that, and reclaimed the piano because he had endorsed a rival piano maker. Ohlssohn had not lived up to his side of the bargain. Had Ohlssohn paid to rent the piano, which I am pretty sure you can do, Steinway could not have reclaimed the piano without a lawsuit.

What came out of it was tighter standards for Steinway's artist program, and Ohlssohn no longer endorses pianos, something that more artists should do, in my opinion. So it is a different world today.

Piano*Dad, you are right, the content of this thread is getting OT… Regarding freedom of speech on PW, it is definitely a privilege that we have and enjoy to a great extent, and it is rarely rebuffed by Frank or the moderators.

If you go back and look at the threads in question involving backto study piano, you will find that they themselves (backto study piano) deleted their own comments. Only backto study piano knows the reason for their decision to delete their own comments; if they choose to divulge that reason here in this thread, that is their prerogative. I will say that no one here on PW twisted their arm to make them delete any comments.

Rick

No, not Yamaha or Kawai. It's a maker with a certain artists program - a maker with which Garrick experienced a little turbulence, you might say. So yes, it is very relevant to the Ohlsson story.

Gee, what a surprise.

Thanks for clarifying. That´s the company I guessed it was....

I reread the thread in question and it appeared to me (from context) that backto_study_piano was talking about a particular Asian maker. Perhaps I was wrong. If any piano maker is "threatening" people here, that is rather odd. What is said here is mostly background noise.

It seems to me that things are getting all twisted up and confused here. The situation with backto study piano deleting his/her own comments in other PW threads at the requests (or demands as they put it) of a dealer (who is not a member of PW) is in no way connected to this thread. In fact, it is my understanding that the dealer in question knew backto study piano by their real name through prior contact/encounters.

This is how rumors and misinformation gets started.

Why don’t we get back on track here, if there is a track…

It’s just another good reason why we need to carefully consider and think about what we write on an international, world-wide, internet forum. Hey, that’s why it’s called Piano World!

Rick

Most of the cost to rent a piano is the moving and tuning. In Atlanta, the rental fee is about 1/3 the total cost of the rental and sometimes less. It amounts to a professional courtesy discount. Other courtesies can be of different value.

Just like artists, athletes and celebrities, companies can be gracious or demanding. I remember reading a story earlier this year where a soccer player lost a $15M campaign for drinking the wrong soda at a post-game press conference.

So either an artist is directly paid to behave a certain way OR artist and company exchange favors for favorable placements. The artist's stature has a lot to do in the balance of power, but any behavior or misbehavior reflects on the attitudes of the parties involved, not the arrangement itself.