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NOTE 31. The End of the U.S. Piano Industry

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The End of the U.S. Piano Industry

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Today the highest price good that people buy besides their house is their car, and this

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reality leads people to believe that we can't possibly let the American car industry die.

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We couldn't possibly be a real country and a powerful nation without our beloved auto

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industry, which is so essential to our national well-being.

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In any case, this is what spokesmen for the Big Three say.

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What about the time before the car?

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Look at the years between 1870 and 1930.

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As surprising as this may sound today, the biggest ticket item on every household budget

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besides the house itself was its piano.

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Everyone had to have one.

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Those who didn't have one aspired to have one.

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It was a prize, an essential part of life, and they sold by the millions and millions.

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That too was new.

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Americans before 1850 mostly imported their pianos.

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American manufacturing was nearly non-existent.

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After 1850, that changed dramatically, with the flowering of what would become a gigantic

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US piano industry.

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The Gilded Age saw a vast increase in its popularity.

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By 1890, Americans fed half the world market for pianos.

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Between 1890 and 1928, sales ranged from 172,000 to 364,000 per year.

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It was a case of relentless and astounding growth.

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They were used in classrooms everywhere in times when music education was considered

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to be the foundation of a good education.

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They were the concert instruments in homes before recorded music and iPods.

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They were essential for all entertainment.

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American buyers couldn't get enough, and private enterprise responded.

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New York, Boston and Chicago were the homes of these companies.

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There was the great chickering piano made by a company founded in 1823, and which later

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led the world in beauty and sound.

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There was Hallett and Davis in Boston, Jay and C. Fisher in New York, as well as Strich

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and Seidler, Hazelton, William Knaib, Baldwin, Weber, Mason and Hamlin, Decker and Sons,

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Wurlitzer, Steck, Kimball in Chicago, and finally Steinway.

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The American piano industry was the greatest in the world, not because the Americans came

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up with any new or great manufacturing techniques, though there were some innovations.

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but because the economic conditions made it most favorable to be manufactured here.

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With the rise of this industry came a vast marketing apparatus.

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Piano ads were everywhere, as a tour of old magazines shows.

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It was widely believed that spending money on a piano wasn't really spending – it was

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an investment.

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The money you paid would be embedded right there in this beautiful and useful item.

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You can always sell it for more than you paid for it, and this was generally true.

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so people would make great sacrifices for these instruments.

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With the growth of this manufacturing came an explosion of shops that served the piano

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market all up and down the industry.

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Piano tuning was a big-time profession.

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Retail shops with pianos opened everywhere, and the sheet music business exploded with

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them.

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Ever notice how, in big cities, the music stores are typically family-owned and established

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40, 50 and even 100 years ago?

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This is a surviving remnant of our industrial past.

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All this changed again in 1930, which was the last great year of the American piano.

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Sales fell and continued to fall when times were tough.

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The companies that were beloved by all Americans fell on hard times and began to go belly up

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one by one.

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After World War II, the trend continued as ever more pianos began to be made overseas.

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In 1960, we began to see the first major international challenge to what was left of the US market

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position.

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Japan was already manufacturing half as many pianos as the United States.

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By 1970, a revolution occurred as Japan's production outstripped the United States,

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And it has been straight down ever since.

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By 1980, Japan made twice as many as the United States.

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Then production shifted to Korea.

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Today, China is the center of world piano production.

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You probably see them in your local hotel bar.

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And what happened to the once beloved and irreplaceable American piano industry?

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Steinway survives to make luxury instruments that few can afford.

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A reader notes that Baldwin is still around today too.

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Mason and Hamelin has made a great comeback in the high-end market.

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The rest moved overseas under new ownership or were completely wiped out.

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Does anyone care that much?

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Not too many.

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Have we been devastated as a nation and a people because of it?

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Not at all.

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It was just a matter of the economic facts.

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The demand went down and production costs for the pianos that were wanted were much

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cheaper elsewhere.

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Now, a piano aficionado reading this will say,

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Buddy, you are crass.

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Listen to the sound of an older model chickering and you can tell the difference.

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It was warm and wonderful, nearly symphonic.

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It is mellow and perfect for the best repertoire.

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By comparison, this new Chinese piano is sharp and angular and pointed.

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It sounds like a marimba.

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You can't play Schubert or Brahms on such junk.

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No one wants to hear that thing.

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Bring back the old days when pianos made sounds that sounded like real music.

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Well, you can still get that old chickering sound, even from a piano made in New York.

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You can buy a Steinway.

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Of course, you have to pay $50,000 plus and even as much as $120,000, but they are there.

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You say that is unaffordable?

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Says you.

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is all a matter of priorities. You can forgo your house and live in a tiny apartment and

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still own the most gorgeous instrument money can buy. In any case, it makes no economic

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sense for you to demand a magnificent piano at a very low price, when reality does not

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make that possible. In the same way, many people will bemoan the loss of the US car

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Industry, and wax eloquent on the glory days of the 1957 Chevy or what have you.

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But we need to deal with the reality that all that is in the past.

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Economics demands forward motion, a conforming to the facts on the ground, and a relentless

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and realistic assessment of the relationship between cost and price, supply and demand.

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We must learn to love these forces in society, because they are the only things that keep

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rationality alive in the way we use resources.

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Without them, there would be nothing but waste and chaos and eventual starvation and death

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we simply cannot live outside economic reality.

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Let's say that FDR had initiated a bailout of the piano industry, and then even taken

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it over and nationalized it.

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The same firms would have made the same pianos for decades and decades, but that wouldn't

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have stopped the Japanese industry from taking off in the 1960s and 70s.

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Americans would have far preferred them because they would have been cheaper.

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American pianos, because they would be state-owned, would fall in quality lower and lower, to

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the point where they would become like a Soviet car in the 1960s.

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Of course, you could set up tariff barriers. That would have forced American pianos on

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us, except for one thing. Demand would still have collapsed. The pianos still have to have

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a market. But let's say you find a workaround for that problem by requiring everyone to

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own a piano. You still can't make people play them and value them. In the end, you

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You have to ask – is it really worth trillions in subsidies, vast tariffs, impositions all

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around, just to keep what you declare to be an essential industry alive?

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Well, eventually, as we have learned in the case of pianos, this is not essential.

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Things come and things go.

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Such is the world, such is the course of events, such is the forward motion of history in a

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The World of Relentless Progress Generated by the Free Market

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Thank goodness that FDR didn't bother saving the US piano industry.

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As a result, Americans can get a huge range of instruments from all countries in the world

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at any price they are willing to pay.

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Today government is even more arrogant and absurd, and it actually believes that by passing

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legislation it can save the US car industry.

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It can subsidize and pay for uneconomic activities, and pay ever more every year.

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The government can also pay millions of people to make mud pies, because mud pies are deemed

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to be an essential industry.

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You can do this, but at what cost, and what would possibly be the point?

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Eventually, even the government will have to accord itself to the reality that economics

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This reminds us of, on a daily basis.