Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum "The piano is a thing of the past"

Sad news story recently published by California newspaper website:

http://www.pe.com/localnews/rivcounty/stories/PE_News_Local_S_piano06.233261c.html

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Piano sales are melancholy for Inland dealerships

08:36 AM PDT on Saturday, September 6, 2008

By SEAN NEALON
The Press-Enterprise

Sales of the piano -- once a status symbol and gathering spot for middle-class American families -- have plummeted, driven by a weakened economy and the rising popularity of electric guitars and electric pianos.

Inland piano store owners said deflating home values and evaporating home equity have resulted in more calls from people selling pianos than people buying them.

Music experts said guitars are sexier than traditional acoustic pianos and electric pianos are portable and less expensive. They also said status symbols change with time.

"The piano is a thing of the past," said Greg Shultz, owner of Oak Valley Piano in Yucaipa. "I think it's pretty much done in our society. There's no appreciation for it."

In the past decade, acoustic piano sales, which include uprights and grands, dropped by almost half in the United States, according to NAMM, an international music-products group in Carlsbad. In 2007, 54,000 acoustic pianos were sold, the lowest number since 1940.

Inland piano store operators report drops of 50 percent or greater in the past two years. Shop owners in Riverside and San Bernardino say business is the worst they've seen in 30 years. A Colton piano store is closing. Shultz's rent has been reduced, but he's still struggling to stay open.

Store owners are using a variety of tactics to stay open. Shultz started selling other musical instruments and more sheet music. Piano Music Center in Riverside cut its staff from nine to five employees. Cannon Pianos in San Bernardino is relying more on fees from servicing pianos.

Status Symbol No More

The decline in piano sales doesn't surprise William Roy, sociology of music professor at UCLA. In fact, he's surprised the decline didn't start earlier.

He said the piano used to be a status symbol, a sign of middle-class respectability. Today, televisions, not pianos, are the focal point of many living rooms.

Walter A. Clark, a music historian at UC Riverside, called the piano "a bit of a dinosaur." It has been replaced by the electric guitar as today's most popular instrument, just as earlier the harpsichord replaced the lute and the piano then replaced the harpsichord, he said.

He cited several reasons for the piano's drop in popularity:

Electronic pianos -- which are cheaper, portable and can hook into a computer -- were introduced.

Many accomplished pianists are working jobs that don't use their talents, which leads Clark to conclude it's often "a dead-end career."

The electric guitar has taken over, with sales nearly tripling in the past decade.

Clark said 19th century European composers such as Wagner and Verdi had political clout. Now, rock musicians raise money for famine relief.

How sad for our culture.

On the bright side, we own a 10 year old TV and have no plans to replace it. Today we just bought a new grand.

I don't buy the accuracy of an article that mis-spells NAMM as NAAM as the source for its chart numbers, or which refers to DIGITAL pianos as electric ones.

People should always poofread their work lest they leave some out.

Sure sales are down. The economy is as well.

I don't meet many people that don't say they would love a grand piano one day.

There is still a desire, perhaps not always the finances.

I do believe there is enough used instruments on the market that it is hard on those manufactures that build as many units as they possibly can.

Especially when they are entry level units.

Pianos last longer than dish washers, it does not matter how cheaply you make them. Make them too cheap they don't sell, make them too good and they last for a very long time.

AMEN!

Gathering spot yes, status symbol, not so much.

When I was growing up (watch the wise cracks, I can pull your membership) it seemed like everyone had a piano, but... they were hardly status symbols.
Most of them were old uprights or spinets.

But yes, someone in just about every house played, and people did gather around them.

Sort of like this...


Oh wait, that was piano party in Maine last month.

Or maybe this...



Oh wait, that was a Mason & Hamlin Piano Factory Tour, followed by a party at Larry Buck's shop in Lowell last May

How about this...



Oh wait, that was the SO CAL Piano Party and Grand Obsession Book Reading/Signing (the one the LA Times covered)...

Well maybe this one...



No wait, that's last years Cape Cod Piano Party


Ah, here we go, a So Cal piano party from 2003...



I guess what I'm trying to say is, our 35,000+ registered members (who have created over 1 million posts), and 300,000+ unique (piano loving) visitors a month, who by the way view 5-6 MILLION page views a month, just might not be quite ready to bury the piano.


Those who think the piano isn't still popular just don't know where to look for piano lovers (we do).

Great pictures, Frank! You’ll get no wise-cracks from me.

Thanks for sharing!

Take care,

Rickster

Nor any wise cracks from me. I'm no spring chicken (I don't play) and my 14 year old daughter has taken the piano up.I do however LOVE hearing one live. I think the naysayers are a little premature. MY parents who are 84 years old still have one in their living room.

I don't think it's going away any time soon...

go pianos!

Who are these "music experts", we should hang them.

This is a sad topic...

When I compare my century-old Knabe (with ornately carved legs and a music desk) to today's newly produced grand pianos, I can see how pianos were a respected symbol of status back then.

I guess many piano industries today do not make pianos like they did in the past...

But I love pianos. I love electric guitars, too, but I cannot imagine a world without a sound of an acoustic piano.

Besides, I even recently bought one!

Guitars sexier? Maybe to a 14 year old!

Interestingly, a recent grand piano buyer was also a guitarist. He is a well respected physician in the Philadelphia area and, at 40 years old, had always wanted to get a very nice grand piano andhis time had come. He felt it was a more "mature" instrument and he could get more expression from a piano than from a guitar.

I also play a little guitar and whole heartedly agree.

Rod hit it squarely on the head when he said that the desire, if not the finances, are still there.

Frank,

Great pics! Thank you for spreading the word and gathering us all together here.

Wait a minute..... couldn't we be politically referred to as a "special interest group" here at PW?

Maybe we just need a lobbyist or two to push through a grant that would place one piano with every family in the USA. It might just cost less than war.

I lived the first 28 years of my life in Southern California, so I couldn't help noticing where that article was researched and published.

Even if there are broader implications, I would caution against assuming that the "Inland Empire" is necessarily representative of anything outside that region.

Perhaps the kindest thing that can be said is that it's never been known as a stronghold of culture.

Steven

Great points Steven!

Dan

People are still buying pianos! I just bought one as well! Long live the piano!!!

Hey, who's that handsome man in the black shirt under the piano between those hot Asian babes???


Boy that was at JohnC's house a zillion years ago.
Great party, that was!

But the real question is this: are accordians sexy? 'Cause Laura has two of them. And she can play a mean polka when she practices.

Dan

Inland piano store owners said deflating home values and evaporating home equity have resulted in more calls from people selling pianos than people buying them.

Sales are down everywhere in every field. But, those used home pianos that are being sold are also being re-purchased by someone else somewhere. So, they are just relocated. I personally feel that pianos will always be around. Tastes change, times change, clothes change but, sooner or later, most of these changes come back into style once again.

Yeah, pianos are dead.
Here are a few of the dead people at my last piano party a couple months ago.
They were moving around okay, so it must have been before the rigor mortis set in.

Oh My! This was in Southern California too !

(it's been a while since this one)