Visiting my piano’s birthplace

Yamaha's Kakegawa piano factory

Not long before Christmas, Mrs. S and I made our way over to Taiwan and Japan for a bit of vacationing, catching up with family, and eating beef-and-rice bowls (among many other Japanese foods we can’t get in Alabama). I didn’t particularly want to go, but when a dirt-cheap plane ticket came available, I was compelled to make the trip. Mrs. S wanted to know what I wanted to do there, but I had no agenda, so she came up with the idea of visiting the Yamaha piano factory in Kakegawa, near Hamamatsu, as another enticement to keep me on the trip.

In front of the one time home of my piano that now lives in Alabama

The factory is not easy to get to, but like most of Japan, it isn’t particularly hard to get to, either. Getting that far off the beaten track somewhere north of Nagoya was interesting, to say the least. It was actually harder to find a place to eat lunch than it was to visit the factory.

One of the nicer looking pianos in the lobby

Prior to the start of the tour, there is a large reception area with one or two of every musical instrument that Yamaha makes, plus about ten different pianos. There were even two concert grands in an isolation room, one of which was the one-millionth piano ever made by Yamaha. I spent a while playing that, trying to feel like the great pianist, Richter, for whom it was basically custom made. Needless to say, my halting renditions of “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” and “Maple Leaf Rag” did not do much to promote those feelings.

Perspective skewed by the camera makes the piano look about five feet long...

...but it's much, MUCH longer than that (almost ten feet).

I wasn't kidding: their one millionth piano. Numbers guy me loves that.

The tour is a conducted affair that takes about an hour and a half. They do give English tours, but ours was in Japanese. We were one of two couples, joined by a small eight or ten person group of (possibly?) music students. The tour starts with two videos where they show you the “3K” parts of piano production, 3K translating from Japanese into the 3D: dirty, difficult, and dangerous. So, we didn’t actually see any tree cutting, wood fabricating, hardware casting, painting, or frame assembly. After the videos, the guide took her time showing us whippens, hammers, felt, and things like that, which I had seen plenty of when I took my square grand apart. The factory was all about pin and string insertion, action assembly and adjustment, and tuning.

Some other pianos that could be tried out

For me, there were two particularly impressive things. First was the sheer number of people they have working on pianos. Of course, anyone who has worked on a piano knows how labor intensive it is, but the point is really driven home when you see how many people are working on the very mundane, but meticulous tasks of piano adjustment. The other thing was, Yamaha doesn’t make all of one piano at a time. If you stand at the top of one of the production lines and look down, you can see that the pianos are (mostly) all different sizes (lengths). It is not uncommon to see a couple G1’s or G2’s, some C1’s, C7’s and C5’s, and never see two in a row the same size. It’s actually kind of disconcerting. Not surprisingly, the parts racks are meticulously labeled and mixed all together. It’s kind of unbelievable.

Some boxes to test different string types

The tour culminates in a listening room where there are three identical pianos that each sound completely different from the other two. The guide played a bit of Fur Elise on them, and the differences were hardly subtle and quite noticeable. Again, for three identical pianos to come off the line within a few days (hours?) of each other and yet sound so different, it really makes a statement about the craftsmanship that goes into each piano. Truly remarkable. We also each received a keychain made from an authentic piano hammer embossed with the Yamaha logo. It was nice that Mrs. S and I both got one, so we can use one and keep the other clean and safe as a trip memento.

"Been there, done that, in their anniversary year" photo

It seems highly likely that I will never buy another acoustic piano, given how well my C1-X holds tune and how I will probably never live in a house larger than the one I’m in now. But I do know that if I do buy one, it will come from this factory. I owe it to myself to get the best possible musical instrument, and that is what the Kakegawa factory makes. I saw that for myself.

Our souvenirs.

Not sure how that happened

My piano, when it it not in use (which is most of the time)

My piano, uncovered and ready for use

Somebody sent me an inquiry about my musical background, so I sat down and wrote an email about how I got where I am today musically. I bragged a bit about my Yamaha C-1X grand piano, and while doing that, I thought I could prove my point by providing a link to my blog. Imagine my surprise, then, when the only picture of my piano is the one where it was sitting in themusic professor’s room at UAH, before I actually purchased it and moved it into our house.

What the …?

Open for quiet time, which is pretty much all the time (it's a really good piano, so it is loud)

I have pictures of us putting in hardwood flooring, including multiple shots of the cats out of their element. I have photos of myworking studio, which includes my self-repaired P-70 digital piano and the new paint and CD rack. I even have shots of the dining room being painted andreorganized into a music room. There are shots of the piano bar moved to its new location. All very impressive. And yet, somehow, there is not a single picture of my grand piano. I say again:

What the …?

Open and ready for some music

I even have a couple pictures of my grand piano on Amazon, from when I reviewed some music related goods. Somehow, though, none of those made it to my blog either.

The inside, obviously

 If you had called me up yesterday and made a bet with me for, say, $1000, that I had only one picture of my grand piano on my blog and none showing it in my house, I would have taken that bet and you would be $1000 richer. I just couldn’t believe it.

Elton John-esque

So, anyway, this entry is just a ditty to rectify that situation. This is my piano. This is where it sits in our house. This is what it looks like, closed, partially open, fully open, and even lit by a string of LED lights. I do own a damn fine piano. One day, I may even be able to play it.

My piano, being used (which is occasionally)

A piano search update

Although I haven’t written about it in while, the piano search has actually been going quite well. I've started to find more pianos that are priced better and that are in decent shape, although I haven’t quite found the exact thing I’m looking for. I looked at a beautiful used C7. It was played by a woman who passed away and her husband is trying to sell it. It is actually only 30 minutes from our house, so we went to see it shortly after I found it. It’s in beautiful shape on the outside, with hardly a scratch or mark on it, with the exception of inside the fall board, which was badly scratched from the woman’s nails. The only other cosmetic defect was the sostenuto pedal was a different shade of brass from the other two pedals. I wasn't sure if that was a question of usage or something else, and I also wasn't sure if it was something that could be corrected. That made it just like the fall board in that respect, as I’m not sure that could be buffed or polished back to normalcy. I checked the tuning on the piano with my Korg electronic tuner and found the piano was perfectly in tune. Perfectly. In fact, it was more in tune than any of the other pianos I have looked at so far. There were two things that were amazing about this. One was that the piano had not been professionally tuned in three years, and the other was that the piano was thirty five years old. 

A 35-year old C7, nice as can be. Could still be mine, as far as I know.

In all honesty, at the price the guy was asking and given the overall condition of the piano, if it had been only 20 years old, I would already own the sucker. So, age is the first problem. The second problem is size. At 7’4”, it will have to be placed in our living room, which means our house will basically be taken over by that piano. Mrs. S says she wouldn't mind, but she hasn't heard me play Piano Exercises for Dummies for an hour and a half on a booming piano in the middle of our living room yet. I think by the second of third week of that, she might change her opinion.

The GC1 in a sea of pianos. 5 year warranty, 100% trade up value, no fussing with piano movers...yep, it's looking quite attractive...

For comparison sake, we looked at some new and near new pianos at the local shop, our second visit there (almost a year to the day after the first, too, I might add). There was a very young, very clean divorce sale C1 for sale, but it was a little pricey and not quite what I was hoping for. If that one had been a C3, I might already own it, but I think it was overpriced and unexciting for a C1. I did like an Indonesian built Yamaha that I looked at, until I found out it was Indonesian. Then I played a Japan built GC1 that I quite liked. We would have the option to trade up at full purchase price if I got that one and at 5’3”, it would be much more easily accommodated in our house and furniture layout plans. We are leaning in the direction of buying that piano, once we get our master bedroom arranged and our dining room painted and arranged for turning into a music room. We also need to buy a rug to put under the piano, which will also affect our painting scheme. Lots of considerations, but good that we are getting some direction if not entirely getting closer to an actual purchase.

I've also been fine tuning (get it?) my practice routine for the arrival of the piano, so that I might actually get good enough to play the damn thing when it gets here. I’ll write about that soon.

Why I still don’t own an acoustic piano, Part Two

A couple of weeks back, I was reading the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal and they had an article about a woman’s quest to buy a piano. She sounded to be cast much in the same mold as me: not particularly talented, not particularly rich, but sure of her dedication to playing and with a devotion to jazz. Without belaboring the fine points of the article, it ended up that she ran across a second hand Baldwin grand that she and her jazz-oriented instructor liked the sound of, and so she ended up with (I believe) a Baldwin concert grand in her house.

This entry would be too boring without a picture of a piano, so, why not a nice Yamaha?!

Up until reading that article, I’d never considered a Baldwin, much like I’d never considered a Steinway until I ran across a cheap one on Craigslist (this in spite of the fact that the Wall Street Journal had another piece about a woman buying a Steinway a few years back. Now that I think about it, why is it always a woman?) But, if somebody could write a newspaper article about that experience, I felt I owed it to myself to at least consider the piano that was the subject matter.

Since reading that article, I've broadened my search to include Steinways and Baldwins, still without success. You would think with so many pianos to choose from, it would be a simple matter to find one I liked at a good price. I think my point is: buying a piano is pretty much like buying a car. There are sports cars and roadsters and sedans and old ones that work and old ones that need work, and European made and Asian made and USA made, and they call come in different colors with different features, and in the second hand market, some owners have nice ones they just want to get rid of, and some have junk that they just want moved, and some have nice ones they’ll only sell for the right price, and some have middling ones that they are attached to and they end up being overpriced, and some just don’t know what a fair price is and so they are priced wrong from start to finish, and some are worth buying and considering and some are not, and some should be pursued and some should be positively avoided.

And all that availability and information and misinformation and static and noise is why I still don’t own an acoustic piano. (End part two)

Speak to me…

In my search for my next and last piano, I’ve come to realize something. The realization is not revolutionary. In fact, it’s kind of common sense, almost to the point of being nonsensical. On Saturday, Mrs. S. and I went to the local music shop, which is basically the only music store in town reputable enough and large enough to sell a decent selection of pianos. When I walked in the door and the salesman (who turned out to be not pushy at all and very, very knowledgeable) asked, “Can I help you?”, I merely said, “Yeah, I’m here to play your pianos.” Not “buy”, not “look at”, not “price up”, “PLAY”. To which, the sales guy said, “Okay, what do you play?” And from there, I laid hands on two Steinways, a Kohler & Campbell, some kind of antique Baldwin, two or three Yamahas, and one more that I’m going to tell you about in a moment.

After playing the second Steinway, I noticed my not-revolutionary idea: price and brand are pretty irrelevant factors in deciding if you like a piano or not. Just because it’s a big, expensive, name brand piano doesn’t mean it will work for you. I can say this because, the first Yamaha I played did not thrill me, even though I’m a self declared Yamaha guy. So the sales guy put me on a Kohler, and, no. It’s nice, it’s better than 90% of pianos I’ve ever touched, but, no. Then Mrs. S, over by the lovely used mahogany Steinway said, try this one. And this one is better than 93% of the pianos I’m ever going to touch, but, no. “You don’t like it?” she asked. “I like it just fine,” I explained, “but I’m not going to buy it.”

My second time in a piano shop, and I was getting no closer to my goal.

The sales guy and I talked: about music, about what I played at UAH, about how big a room I had to put a piano in, about my obsession with Yamaha. His eyes widened, “Did you try the C7?” I looked at him. “I don’t know, did I?” He walked me over to it. I thought maybe I had played it. Sure I had. No wait, maybe not. Let’s try our standard test song: Freddie Hubbard’s “Little Sunflower”.

There. That’s it. Hear it? I do. The Yamaha C7, eleven years old, well-used by a local church, spoke. It spoke directly to me. Mrs. S of course saw all the dust and scratches. She didn’t hear what I heard. I also saw the worn hammers, the dust bunnies under the harp, and a few other imperfections, but the voice of that piano was scintillating. It was a sound I’d not heard in a long time. It was the sound I want to hear every time I hit a piano key. Unfortunately, I’m not sure about hitting up the home equity line for the piano. I’m just not sure about it. There was something satisfying about paying an annual fee because the HELOC balance was $0.

Oh, well. We walked around some more. Looked at a new C7 which, surprisingly, did not sound quite as sweet as the old one. It was, however, situated on tile, so the harmonics were bouncing all over the place, but I still felt differently about it, compared to the used one. Couldn’t help but notice the price tag of the new one was more than double the used one, too. Next to it was an elaborate mahogany inlaid, squat little baby grand. It had a little gold bird on it and said, Vogel. The sales guy said it was hand crafted in Poland. He said, we’ve all been surprised at how good it sounds. Really? Poland? Hand crafted? “It’s pretty,” Mrs. S said. Okay. Let’s cut to the chase and try some Miles Davis on this one. I don’t want to spend a lot of time on a piano that sounds like it came from Toys R’Us.

But, believe it or not, I heard it again. In fact, I was stunned. I played some more. I could hear it, plain as day. The Vogel spoke mellifluously in the same tongue and tone of the C7. It was incredible. I looked into the casing. How could that voice be coming out of that little box? Doesn’t matter. If it’s going to talk to me, I’m going to listen. And with apologies to the fine companies of Steinway and Yamaha, whose pianos I love, I’ll take the Vogel action every day of the week. It was smooth, even, strong, fluid, precise, and (I’ll say it) beautiful. There could be no better translator for the voice of that piano, another reason (I guess) why it spoke to me.

I will give some other pianos chances to speak to me, but my realization is, I’ll not buy a piano that doesn’t speak to me.

Vogels and C7s and I are going to be having more conversations in the future. Hopefully, a lot of them.

Fire Sale

My original plan for financing my grand piano purchase fell through. The stamp collection that I have kept and fostered and insured and cared for over the last forty years turned out to be worth far less than I thought it would. The buyer, who was very professional, knowledgeable and courteous told me what I already knew: the hobby is dying. Kids have Facebook, Nintendo, X-box, and their phone, and many of them have never seen a piece of mail with a stamp on it. No surprise then that young people are not taking up the hobby and there is not market for stamps, even for some as nice and relatively rare as mine.

I dove into Craiglist and it wasn’t long before I found a Yamaha C3 (very nice piano, that) for $2000. After two days of fervently trying to contact the seller, I finally heard back from them. Unfortunately, I quickly realized something was amiss, and a cursory search with the text showed up number one on a website called scamdex.com. No C3 for me!

Speaking of C3's: Here's a C15 stamp, one of many I will be selling soon.

I’ve been watching two pianos in the north Alabama area on ebay. Both are Yamaha’s under six feet. Both are being sold by families with some kind of vague need. Both have a disclavier attached (not something I want). Both are at least one hour from my house. So far, I’m just watching those.

A trip to the Steinway Piano Gallery in Nashville turned up a relatively affordable new piano made by Samick. I wasn’t impressed with its feel, but it looks and sounds good. Still, something about, “What’s a Samick?” and “Well, it’s a German company, owned by a Korean company...I think.” Then, “So it’s a Korean piano?” “No, Indonesian.” I don’t know. I mean, Yamaha makes pianos in Indonesia, too, no big deal there, but, nobody’s going to ask me about my Yamaha.

Next phase: Try one more time to sell my ginormous, semi-refurbished square grand piano, start piecing out my stamp collection on ebay, and use the proceeds to buy a nice Yamaha baby grand, used. Wish me luck. Or better yet, buy my piano and stamps.

Sure glad they invented cell phones

 Otherwise I’d have to be waiting by the phone for a call.

Player #1: The Apple iPhone

I’m stepping up my piano shopping in earnest. I have already decided that my next piano will be my last – or maybe second last – so I decided to sell my stamp collection to fund the purchase. Although I have been collecting stamps for forty years and it will be hard to see them go, it will be nice to see a classic black baby grand piano in the house.

Player #2: A stamp from my collection (expensive one)

 Back in January, I called a buyer from a reputable company about my collection. I sent them an inventory and description, pretty much like I did for the insurance company a few years earlier. They were definitely interested (I did say I’d been collecting for forty years, right?) but not surprisingly, Alabama is not one of their hotspots for buying trips. He told me he’d call me the next time he expected to be in the area, and I suspected that would be the end of it for a while.

Player #3: One of the pianos good enough to be the last piano I buy, ever.

Then suddenly, last week, he told me he would be here this week and next. I told him when I was available, and now, I’m waiting. My stamps are ready. I even have boxes ready. All I need is a buyer with a checkbook and his willingness to write a Steinway-like (or at least Yamaha-like) number on it.

Ring, dammit! Ring!