Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum What makes a Steinway a Steinway?

Or a Kawai a Kawai, etc.? Is it just the plate? When a piano gets rebuilt, it seems everything except for that can be replaced, including the soundboard. So if you have a 1915 Steinway that is rebuilt, will it sound anything like the piano did in 1915? Or is only the furniture aspect of the instrument like a 1915 instrument?

If you take a non-Steinway piano and a Steinway piano, and do a complete rebuild using the exact same parts, will they sound similar?

If you take a Steinway piano and rebuild it using other parts, is it still a Steinway?

(forgive my lack of proper terminology here, I hope you understand what I'm asking)

A name is only a name. Whether you call it a Steinway or not, doesn't change what it is.

Steinway chooses to not call any rebuild not done by them a Steinway. And this, even though non-Steinway rebuilders do a better job than Steinway. But it's just a name.

I would say that most non-Steinway rebuilders do a worse job than Steinway.

Steinway calls rebuilds done with non-Steinway parts not Steinways, but any rebuilder can get Steinway parts.

As I heard from my technician, Steinway builds the whole instrument under tension. Even the keybed is not flat so it is under tension when fitted. The angle of the left end of the cabinet is not 90 degrees but a bit bigger because of stress they build in.
The whole thing is build to produce tone in every way they can.
This is my techs saying not mine. I'm just a pianist. But I tend to believe him.

Irrespective of Steinway as a particular company... would any piano dealer who takes in a piano as a trade-in no longer label the piano as the name on the plate if rebuilt by someone else? I would be surprised if that were the case. Otherwise, all rebuilt pianos for resale would be extremely cheap and dealers would claim 'Oh, that is no longer a Steinway/Yamaha/Kawai, because it was rebuilt by a non-dealer of that brand. We just haven't removed the original brand name'. Just doesn't happen.

Your technician does not know what he is talking about,
Regards

Thanks!
Problem is that a lot of people can say a lot of things and a lot of it is bs it seems.
Can't help but wonder why he would say something like that. He's not selling me anything...

If you are interested what all can influence the sound of a piano, you may want to read "A Grand Obsession" by Perri Knize. She does a very good job of covering many/all of the things that have an influence.

And I think there are no rules for when a piano builder must remove the brand from the front, like after bigger than 30% of parts replaced or something.

Here, we still have a few piano builders who will fit Chinese made innards into 100+ years cabinet. They of course do not sound like the original. They also do not sound like a new Chinese piano. And of course they look different.

Greetings,
Perhaps he doesn't understand that the non-90 degree configuration is due to strike point considerations, nor that the keybed arc is to keep the keyframe mated.

The major tension/compression area is the strings/soundboard relationship. To a lesser extent, the key-frame needs tension exerted on the balance rail studs so that the front and back rails are in compression against the keybed. However, this is normal for all brands of grands, but only has a small effect on sound, if at all.

Piano craft is an unregulated trade, and many techs have learned it from a single source, which allows idiosyncratic ideas to take root and grow. There are many bad choices that have acquired legitimacy, such as using milk to clean ivory, "feeding" old cracked finishes with furniture oil,(which seeps through the cracks and permanently stains the wood), etc.

regards,

There are design principals and intent that anyone desiring to rebuild any piano needs to understand. There are production principles that also must be understood. A rebuilder also needs to understand what constitutes Musically Intelligible Sound. Ergonomics of the action and desired musical expression must be understood as well. Then there is the significant physics of vibratory modes. And also the material science of the structural elements pianos possess. And finally how all these things change under conditions of use and climate.

Not a simple set of skills to master. That is why great pianos are few. Even at this mature stage of the piano, few people in the industry understand these elements. Many have a wrong understanding of them. Many of the standard design features of pianos are not precisely specified, nor are they held to narrow tolerances.

The state of the industry regarding understanding piano technology in a fully comprehensive way is low. This is proven by the large variation in musical quality experienced by users.

A rebuilder who understands these things better than a factory will beat them in consistent musical results.

As I have said many times, this is a question whose primary purpose is to distract from what matters in a piano, be it a Steinway, a Yamaha, or any other piano that is being considered for the purpose of being used as a musical instrument.
Do you like the way it sounds? Do you like the way it feels? Do you like the way it looks? Do you feel comfortable with the service and guarantee that come with the piano? Does the piano represent a good value?
Beyond that, there are definitely approaches that will create a more authentic piano, more true to the way we suspect it sounded and played originally. There are also approaches that create more of a hybrid piano between the authentic and the newer version. There are approaches that deviate from the original design and intentions with results that the player can judge as better or worse or more or less enjoyable.

It is for the pianist to judge which piano they feel best about. Pianos are for pianists. Pianists make judgements based on how they perform. Everything else is a distraction from what matters.

Love. It's what makes a Steinway a Steinway.

...inspired out of aggressive marketing and cutthroat techniques. But still its quality and sound are indisputable.

P.S. in the meanwhile, let me put like 2 turbos in my WRX STI so I can smoke a Civic

Friends, esp. Arghhh:
Meaning no offense to ANYONE, I believe that this is a WRONG question, leading nowhere.
When one plays Steinways that have passed through the hands of our top boutique rebuilders, one is in no doubt that so much that is great about the Steinway piano has been realised, almost in the sense of a Platonic ideal.
For instance, although not rebuilds, the Fabbrini Steinways would convert the hardest heart. I don't hear anything about S&S bringing suit against Fabbrini for misrepresenting their product. Pianists in Europe are clawing each other's eyes out to obtain these pianos for concerts.
In a very different case, I recall playing an elderly D in East Lansing when I was just a boy (c.1965). It had been given a comprehensive rebuild by the much-admired chief technician at the MSU music dept. To this day, it represents to me a peak of tone and touch, the demonic and angelic combined in one fabulous instrument. I have it on reliable authority that this piano, almost a century old, is still in fine fettle. I feel that it was surely the rebuild that gave the piano its distinction, or at least revealed its treasures.
To imply that the products of our top boutique rebuilders have produced something foreign to the original makers, that they are no longer Steinway pianos, is simply silly.
Karl Watson,
Staten Island, NY

What makes a Steinway a "Steinway" is the interplay between history and marketing, and a person's perception. That's not in any way a bad thing.

A very clever young women once took a bunch of Coke and Pepsi drinkers and did a taste test on them. Thing is, she used an FMRI to verify what the subjects reported. May have been a PET scanner. Either way, it clearly helps to have a dad who's a radiologist.

Anyway, she looked at the response of the pleasure centers in the brain to Coke and Pepsi, to verify what subjects expressed. I know one area was the nucleus acumbens, what a professor of mine would call the "James Brown" center of the brain.

The interesting finding was in the Coke drinkers. If you gave Coke drinkers samples of Coke and Pepsi without their knowing what they were drinking, their brains lit up more from Pepsi and many expressed that they liked Pepsi better. But if you told them what they were drinking, they all liked the Coke taste much more, and it lit the pleasure centers of their brain more than either blinded drink or unblinded Pepsi. They truly experienced more pleasure from drinking Coke than Pepsi and it tasted better.

Perception, what you actually experience, is greatly influenced by your expectations and predispositions. Steinway has a fantastic marketing strategy combined with a long history of building nice pianos. To most people, their name is synonymous with great pianos. So it doesn't really matter if wearing a blindfold, you would prefer the sound of a Kawai, with a nearly identical scale, to a Steinway. You won't play your piano blindfolded. All that matters is if you like the sound and feel of the Steinway.

My kids played on a Mason & Hamlin AA for 10 years, but if you had asked them what kind of piano we had, they couldn't have told you. I know, because it's gone, and I asked. My son said a Mason something? My daughter said, "It was black, and wait, I know. . . No I don't."

There's a Phoenix piano down there now and when the piano teacher asked my daughter what the new piano was, it was "some bird thing" (you'd think shecould remember Harry Potter...) The Phoenix got damaged in transit, so it's actually going back to be replaced, but even damaged, you can play enough of the scale to hear it and my daughter thinks it's tone is much nicer than our old piano. There's not much preconception influencing her, and no marketing, so I think she just likes the sound better.

Now, if my daughter knew about Steinway piano's reputation and it turned out she liked a Steinway better than the old M&H, we'd never know if it was because the Steinway's sound alone was preferable to her, or if the sound plus it's name recognition made her prefer it. And it truly wouldn't matter. All that would matter would be if she preferred it.

You'll never know how much influence the Steinway name has on how you perceive a given Steinway piano, but if their name and history and touch and tone combine to make it a great piano, or your favorite piano, then it's your favorite piano. Hmmm, I changed my mind. I think the human psyche is what makes a Steinway a "Steinway".

Now I'm confused. I thought that's what makes a Subaru a Subaru....

WHAT ?

Tone and touch.

I owned two very nice Yamahas for 22 years combined - C7E & an S6. But when I was fortunate to get my D at 10 months old from a private party and nurture it for about 3 years till it really blossomed - the end result was something on a much higher level - artistic, expressive and inspirational- then any piano I've played to date. Even a Fazioli, which I love.

The decal?

Maybe you should write a book about it.