Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum Know your piano's brand name?

I find it very interesting when someone (always a non-piano player or someone who took some lessons when they were young) has a piano in their house - sometimes for years and years - and they don't know what brand name it is! A person will tell me "Oh, I have had a piano for 35 years... my parents bought it when I was young and I took lessons for a couple of years" So I always ask them what brand it is... and get an answer "I don't remember". However, ask them what kind of car they own... and right away they know it's a Buick or a Chevy... even what year it is and how many miles it has! Am I expecting too much from people? Of course a professional or good amateur pianist would know what they have... but not everyone who owns a piano knows. Anyone out there with the same experience?

I know. It's weird. This happened to me recently. We had dinner out with some professional acquaitances. We all came back to our house after dinner, and I played the piano a little bit. One of the men said that he has a piano at home, that was his dad's. He was thinking of having the kids take lessons (yeah, right). I asked him what kind of piano, and he didn't know. I thought it was strange. People have mixed up values. Go figure.

Very, very common.

In fact, I would hazard a guess of 25% with players and 50% of non-players.

I suppose that mostly us members (and dealers) here on the PW forums are the fanatics about brands.

I’ve called about local ads for pianos for sale and the seller didn’t know the brand name; they kind of acted like I was a nut for wanting to know the brand name.

Wouldn’t it be nice if all that really mattered was the touch and tone?

Best regards,

Rickster

Steve - for the 25% of players, I hope that would mostly be made from people who have non-branded pianos and basement instruments long since painted and coated with Mod Podge so there's no way to know what the brand name is. Otherwise, I'd have to seriously question the good sense of anyone who could sit for months on end (more or less) IN FRONT OF the piano's name right there above middle-C and not see it.

As for the non-players: they probably don't know the brand name of the sofa in their living room, either

Mostly people think my piano is an "off brand" since it's neither Steinway nor Baldwin (which seems to be the two names that most punters call out if you run into a pub and yell out "name a piano brand.")

I had a wedding consultation with a bride-to-be who pointed at a Steinway grand and asked "So... is that the organ?"

:rolleyes:

OK, let's play devil's advocate for a moment. Suppose you had a credenza inherited from your parents, and you were not a furniture aficionado. If someone asked you the brand name, you might not be aware, even if it was by a prominent furniture maker.

Granted, if the fallboard isn't down you might expect these people to pass by and notice the darn thing once in a while! Yet I can imagine people not noticing things around them if they really don't care much.

Having said all that ...... what's WITH these people???

I LOVE it!

I bet they know the brand of their television, though

Televisions have brands??

I perfectly remember the piano I have learned on as a child, Lehmann was the name, it was certainly not a quality piano as many would expect today but it was my piano and I will never forget it.

I also instantly remembered, although atthe time I could not link anything with the name, the upright piano of my piano teacher when I first read that name again: Bluethner.
It was written with the "Umlaut", in an elegant writing that I remember because I have a photographic memory for these things and because I could never, ever play on a piano without knowing its name.... it would be like getting on a car without knowing the make...

I wonder now whether it was a pre-war example or a communist one, which I think they continued to produce and sell in the West after the war; it certainly looked more modern than the piano I had at home and the difference in the keyboard was immediately noticeable, but that was just the "working animal", she also had a grand all for her... .

Don't forget about the people who know their pianos' name, but not who really made them....Schaffer & Sons, D. H. Baldwin, etc. & I'm not trying to start something, this has been discussed enough, but what about Boston & Essex?

Just for the record, I know quite a few people who don't know what sort of car they drive, and I remember one particularly memorable response to the question "what sort of car do you drive?" Answer - a red one.

What? She didn't point to her husband-to-be when she said that. Pity ..... :p

Yeah, as Prince once replied to a question like that...

I didn't know
I was playing
in a cathedral.

I have people who think washing machines are dryers at my laundromats. And they wonder why success is so elusive.

We hear that all the time. Another funny thing we run into all the time is people calling about tunings who ask if the tuner comes out to the house or they have to bring the piano in! I don't mean to mock anyone, but come on that's just common sense!

As a child my old upright had the name York on it. I often wondered later in life if "New" had preceded it and had worn off. It was sold when I was about 10 so I never had the chance to find out.

I often have people who express the same inability to name the piano they own.

Boy, here in Kentucky people would not understand if you didn't know the origin of your horse. Here not only do they know the name and breed but the sire, dam, grandsire, damsire, etc.