Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum Young Chang's New Improved Grand Pianos

That's interesting. I'm by no means a good player, and I notice that the difference in touch between pianos can be a big problem. I suck much worse than usual for the first few hours playing a piano I'm not accustomed to. It's just the difference, not the quality. It happens with much better pianos than mine.

Indeed the touch is something that can throw me off all the time. It happened a lot when going to take my lessons from practicing on my upright then going to the grand to take lessons.
It should be easier now that I got a Baby G too.
I am thinking if this is like skating when you notice the touch more as you get more experienced...
Like when I began ice skating...I couldnt tell the difference between sharp skates or dull ones or even the ice surface..but after getting much more experienced..I could tell right away if something was wrong with my edges or the ice surface as it felt totally different.
So as you can imagine..Recital day is a frustrating day because you have no warm up time, you sit there and start playing on a piano that feels totally different from what yours does and somehow need to adjust on the fly.
That was one of the reasons I moved to a Grand..besides it being my long time dream of course

When are the new YC's likely to be on floors in stores? After all this discussion I'm really interested to try one!

The 150 grands have been available in some stores for a year or so. As has the smaller 114 vertical. The problem is that dealers tend to want to clear old inventory before ordering in new product.

I had a new 157 grand in my classroom at WestPAC and there was another on display -- along with a new 185 -- in YC/Weber's exhibit. There was also a 122 vertical in the exhibit space. I doubt that either the new 175 grand or the new 131 upright will be available for another six to twelve months (though that is just a guess on my part).

I'm told that all of YCNA's future orders will be for the new designs. The old designs are still available for the Chinese market and will probably continue to be built until all of the parts and materials inventory have been used up.

The Chinese market is rapidly becoming more sophisticated so I assume the transition will take place there as quickly as is practical.

ddf

IIRC my local stores where I got the 150 had all the bigger models too so I was lucky the sell lots of pianos so they did not have any older version to push me to buy those

Del, can you give us an overview table of all the new designs, both YC and Weber (are there others)? Make, Model, Estimated avaliability date, First serial number.... Is there anything bigger than the 185 in the works?

Not really. My work has been focused on design and is now transitioning more toward quality control and production processes. I pay little attention to marketing efforts.

The easiest way to tell the new designs from the old is to look at the bass bridges. None of the new designs utilize bass bridge cantilevers.

The entire product line has been redesigned. This includes the 208 (6' 10"), 228 (7' 6") and 275 (9') grands.

ddf

Somewhat off topic, but Del, I love your picture in the Young Chang ad and a very nice short article about your design work for YC in the latest issue of MMR.

Congratulations!

This is at least partly true of other animals.
I can walk up to a horse I haven't seen in a few years, he/she is unlikely to "recognize" me by sight, or even by smell.
(most of us offer a bare hand for a horse to sniff as part of the greeting)
Once I say, "Hi" the whole facial expression changes and not in the same sort of way that a horse that I haven't met before reacts.

{NOT a horse whisperer, but I like 'em and they seem to get along with me (-: }

OK, fair enough. Perhaps YC should get a marketing person here on PW.

I'll be interested in trying that 275 when it's available, not that I'm really in the market (The old Knabe 9 ft. is fine for me). Given the great results that your design ideas produce in small grands, I'm eager to see what happens when they're applied at the full 9 ft. level.

When and how much no doubt are questions for a marketing type.

I agree that experience on the concert stage working with outstanding performers is useful. It certainly taught me the value of listening for, and identifying, the sometimes—but sometimes not— subtle timbral differences among different pianos that can make a pianist love one instrument and completely reject another while another equally skilled pianist will come along and reverse the selection. Given that I’m not sure I agree that these differences are always that narrow.

Although he was 88 years old when I first met him and his hearing was not what it once had been, Arthur Rubinstein had very definite ideas about how he wanted his piano voiced and that was quite different from the preferences of, say, Alicia de Larrocha. Even though both were broadly viewed as “classical” pianists the way they approached the piano was quite different. And, although I don’t remember specifically discussing it at the time, I doubt either of them would have thought much of Vladimir Horowitz’s piano. Few people besides Horowitz himself did yet he liked what he liked and I wasn’t about to argue with him about it.

Although Oscar Peterson and Paul Badura-Skoda performed on the same Bösendorfer Imperial in the same hall about a week apart their opinions about how the piano should sound were quite different. Admittedly, Peterson and Badura-Skoda represented two extremes of the musical spectrum—jazz vs. classical—but I think we have to be able to produce pianos that appeal to each even though in the process one instrument might end up not being suitable for both.

Even within the same overall genre, musical taste—and with it the demands on the piano—can vary considerably. Though both were broadly categorized as “jazz” pianists the sound and feel that Dave Brubeck looked for in his piano was enough different from what Bill Evans was after that I doubt they ever would have willingly selected the same performance instrument. Brubeck ended up playing a Baldwin SD-10 while Evans just loved a certain Steinway D that some pianists wrote off as “too weak.” It wasn’t really weak but the hammers had not been overly lacquered as was becoming common at the time. Brubeck wanted a sharp, almost percussive attack while Evans was much more interested in a controllable and warm pianissimo—he expected his audience to shut up and listen—than in the sharper, more percussive sound of the Baldwin.

Since I have no idea what your “Musically Intelligible Sound” model is would you mind explaining?

ddf

I have proven that if you adopt the proper tone regulation protocols you can produce a fine piano that most pianist would find perfectly suitable-from all genres of music. Yes, each pianist has preferences, and they can vary with their mood, repertoire, etc, etc,. But it is not "anything goes" as far as tone and touch standards.

Great piano tone must include a wide dynamic range, volume balance across the compass, projection of melody easily achieved in all registers, vowel tone color change with dynamics, minimized hammer/action noise, and this should all be coupled to an action that communicates to the pianist how fast and where the hammer is and when the key is ready to be played again. Same control issues apply with the pedals.

If you would have taken the numerous opportunities you have had in the past to attend my classes at PTG you would be more aware of the state of the art I have established. Specifically my class titled; "Tone is Not For Tasting". I have been to many of your classes Del. I have also exhibited pianos at PTG events that exhibit what I am talking about. I don't think you ever took the time to try one of my pianos out. I also can't recall the last time you exhibited a piano that you were responsible for the musicality of.

Actually, I've been in several. You must not have noticed.




You have? Many?




Yes, I've seen several pianos you've had on exhibit dating back to the last time the annual convention was held in Portland.

ddf

"...while Evans was much more interested in a controllable and warm pianissimo—-- he expected his audience to shut up and listen—-- than in the sharper, more percussive sound of the Baldwin..."

And Bill Evans was right, too. (The best public speakers know this trick of getting the audience to lean forward in their seats, to catch those words that trickle down to triple-piano --- then the pause, a few rests of pregnant silence ---then they thunder forth with a fortissimo. It's almost orgiastic.)

Not that I feel a need to argue with Dave Brubeck about how he liked his Baldwin voiced...

I suppose that if you were able to keep Rubinstein, De Laroccha, Peterson, Horowitz, Badura-Skoda, Brubeck and Evans all satisfied, then I don't need to be pointing these things out. But if you were thinking of writing a book about "How the Sound Gets Into the Piano and Gets Out Again", you could furnish it with some nice case histories. Book to be accompanied by a CD and a DVD.

Thinking the main thing is to get good ratings and keep Larry Fine happy with all the new piano designs under discussion..

Norbert

If I am reading your posts correctly; you said you were unaware of my concept of Musically Intelligible Sound theoretical framework. My classes usually include a synopsis at least. I also don't recall you attending any of my classes for many years. You are kind of hard not to notice Del.

It wasn't that long ago that you did a class at the Puget Sound chapter meeting. I didn't get to the event you held recently at your shop because I was in China at the time -- a rather long commute.

At conferences and conventions it is difficult to get to many of the classes I would like to attend because I generally have my own teaching schedule and other duties. Please don't take my absence personally; I'm there when I can be there. I often don't agree with you but I always find your presentations interesting and stimulating.

ddf

Del,
I haven't done a program for Puget Sound Chapter in at least 15 years. My Musically Intelligent Sound concept dates back to 1995.

A client of mine is Julliard graduate who studied with Rhosinna Levine, she also spent some time listening to Leonard Bernstein discuss music. He talked about framing a similar analysis structure for tone as mine according to her.

Time flies. Well then it must have been at a regional but I know I've sat in on at least one of your classes more recently than that. Although I've been to nearly all of the regionals over the past several decades I don't remember you're being around for most of them. But, as I said, I am often teaching and or have other duties and/or business contacts to make; I don't get to attend all that many classes any longer.

Do you have any more presentations scheduled in which you discuss your tuned aliquot system? If so, when and where?

ddf

The creative class of people have a social convention that honors inventors with the rights to name their inventions. Do you not recognize that?