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Also went with Ox Bone when rebuilding our Steinway console. My wife kind of fell in love with the feel after playing a concert on a piano with them. She's never been crazy about ivory, however. Probably one too many pso with yellowed, cracked, curled or chipped keytops.

Howard

My newer Yamaha irritates me with it's plastic slippery keys, while my older Knabe just feels glorious with it's non-slip ivory keys. One of these days when I settle on a new piano, no ethical issues will stop me from getting ivory keys. Excuse my bluntness, but give me a new piano and the choice between plastic and ivory and I'll pull the trigger myself on that big ol' gray keytop factory.
It's funny - but one of the countries that runs a nature preserve for the elephants (and was - if I remember - one of the countries who originally pushed for the ban) was begging, some years ago, to be allowed to sell the ivory they had gathered over the years from the elephant preserve to continue funding the preserve. Oh the irony....

I bet someone could come up with a plastic that imitates the feel of ivory pretty well for maybe $100-200 a set. The problem is that the plastic that we get costs $20 a set.

One could always sand plastic key tops so they would not be as slick. Removing that top layer, and getting down to the more porous plastic below would probably go a long way towards minimizing the difference in feel.

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The German key covers cost more but are much better. Those cheap $20.00 sets are not very good. Ya know the ones I mean, the notes are on the tails of the tops so you don't get them mixed up.

If someone comes up with synthetic key cover that stays white and works well I will gladly pay $200.00 a set for material.

Yamaha has something now that works but they will not sell the material.

Shameful

"It's funny - but one of the countries that runs a nature preserve for the elephants (and was - if I remember - one of the countries who originally pushed for the ban) was begging, some years ago, to be allowed to sell the ivory they had gathered over the years from the elephant preserve to continue funding the preserve. Oh the irony...."

Oh the.. Ivory!

But seriously, this shows just how good the system works for everyone: elephants, local economies and piano players....
Just a couple of decades of elephant protection has largely eliminated the extinction danger, elephant numbers are increasingly rising - I think in some places are now reaching overpopulation - and in this way larger amounts of perfectly legal ivory from naturally deceased elephants is available to the market.
Nothing wrong in that, the problem was not the ivory per se, but the fact that elephants were endangered because of it.

On the contrary, the indiscriminate poaching, if not stopped, would have rapidly made new ivory unavailable even for those who - shockingly - do not care for the elephants.

cruiser wrote: Agreed.

I've been wondering for a while if Steinway has some proprietary plastic they use on their pianos. Is it the same cheap white plastic that is sold for replacements? I had the impression it was something more special. If there is something better out there, I'd sure like to find out what it is. Bone doesn't attract me at all.

Mammoth ivory is used for lots of things, believe it or not, but I haven't heard of it being used for piano keys.

Comparing the keytops of a Yamaha P22, Clavinova, and C3 I find that the P22 and the Clavinova are about the same (they become slippery and greasy), while the C3 was slightly better than those 2. Not perfect, it still became slippery and greasy, just not as fast. The dealer said the C3 had an improved keytop but in my opinion, it was not too different from the others. I have much more confidence playing my Knabe than most modern pianos with plastic, ivorite, or whatever gimmick they are trying out now.
If you talk to David Warther at the Warther Musuem, he sells complete sets of ivory keytops and can also reccomend a proffesional installer who is experienced with the process of replacing plastic with ivory.

And as for being ashamed of ivory keys: as a lover of classical music and classical instruments I would only be ashamed if I were to apply modern political views to my classical loves.

I've seen it named in the specifications of some very high end pianos.

Here's a source for a variety of keytop materials including legal ivory, wooly mammoth, and bone:

http://www.pianoandorgankeys.com/catalog/index.php?cid=1

Also mineral ivory (acrylic) and European acrylic. Problem is its hard to guess what you might like without playing some first.

Howard

I think that it is just the standard keytop for whatever manufacturer made the keyboard. When Pratt Read made their keyboards it was Pratt Read tops. Now I suppose it is Kluge. I do not notice that much difference.

I suspect many of you, if not all of you, are aware that the predominant material in ivory and in teeth and in bone is the same, hydroxyapatite (calcium phosphate). Hydroxyapatite accounts for > 90% of the suface material (enamel) of teeth (and tusks). Differences in texture may be due to other components in the tusk/tooth/bone. However, a tusk is just an external tooth.

So when I had all that expensive dental work done and told the dentist to keep the teeth, I lost out on a golden oppurtunity? Dang it.

Nonsense. A legally harvested elephant will not only provide ivory for keytops and such, it will also provde food for quite a few villagers. It's a resource and should be managed as such.

On the other hand, poachers should be shot.

I've played on various kinds of plastic keytops all my life including the new ones I had put on my Yamaha G7. I think they're called ivorite or something like that. They feel right to me, not slippery or anything. I occasionally apply some Yamaha 'Key Sparkle' that makes them feel great.

I don't really have a philosophical problem with these other legal materials but there is something about playing on dead animal parts that makes me a little queazy when I've played pianos with ivory keys. They always look a little shabby to me too, although the ones I've played just may not be maintained correctly.

Maybe it's just what you get used to over the years.

I guess if you're squeamish, then the idea of playing on "dead animals" can be a little frightening. I don't think there's much difference between ivory keys and eating a nice steak or pulling on a pair of leather shoes or getting money out of a leather wallet or eating jello or sushi. I suppose the main difference is that the elephant was scarce when the ban was enacted, but there are plenty of cows and chickens running around because we have farms for them, so the National Geographic Magazine can't make us feel sad for eating them.

There is also an allure to something that is "taboo".

But the country who wanted a lift on the ban for their circumstance had a point: all the elephants had "died of natural causes" so why not sell the ivory? Of course if an exception is made for them, human nature will find a way to make more elephants die of "natural causes" and then nobody will get exceptions.

It's a touchy issue and will touch different people in different ways. In the end, neither side can claim to be right definitively. But after you own an older grand with nice aged ivory keys, it's difficult to go back to plastic and it's clinical perfection.

But the country who wanted a lift on the ban for their circumstance had a point: all the elephants had "died of natural causes" so why not sell the ivory? Of course if an exception is made for them, human nature will find a way to make more elephants die of "natural causes" and then nobody will get exceptions.

why not cultured Ivory,like cultured Stone cultured Pearls..?

then there's Cuban cigars..some say there's nothing like them..others say no big deal..

I really have no idea if that would give the same feeling or not honestly, as I have never had the oppurtunity to try it. I wouldn't be above trying it, that's for sure - any alternative to some of the plastic keytops available now would be welcome if there was an improvement in touch. I'm only a fan of Ivory because of my experience with it, not because I know for 100% sure that ivory is the best (which I can't say without trying alternatives). And who knows - perhaps it's old ivory I prefer and I might recoil in dissapointment at the touch of new ivory - I haven't had the chance to play a piano with a new ivory keytop laid down.

Cuban cigars are special.

If your piano contains shellac (at least the original kind) you should know that it is an insect secretion.

One of my musical instruments has decorations in mother-of-pearl, which is secreted by a mollusk.

Consider the plight of organists, who play on cow shinbone keys (if they are lucky enough not to have plastic keys); the wind system of the organ requires yards of sheep leather and it is held together with something prosaically known as "fish glue".

If you played a stringed instrument, you might have to contend with horsehair bows and catgut strings (which are made from intenstines of various livestock, but not from cat).