🎹 American Pianos | Steinway, Chickering, Baldwin, Mason & Hamlin | Pianos of the World- EP. 05🎹

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0:00 - Introduction
0:44 - Opening Playing Demo - Steinway M
1:17 - The Story of American Made Pianos
2:15 - Origins of American Piano Making
2:44 - Jonas Chickering
4:36 - The Peak of American Piano Making
5:35 - Introduction of Piano Players/Piano Player Mechanisms
7:48 - Piano Making During World War 2
9:57 - Canadian Made Pianos
10:43 - Comparisons Between American Automotive Industry and Piano industry
12:06 - Modern Day American Made Pianos
13:36 - Features of American Made Pianos

#AmericanPianos #Steinway #PianoHistory

Welcome to the Merriam Pianos YouTube channel! Our series on the various piano producing regions from around the world continues today as we tackle the American piano industry.

We’ll cover the beginnings of the American piano industry from the 1800s, all the way up to today.

The Beginning
The history of piano making in the United States is certainly fascinating, going back just as early as piano making in Europe. The first instance of a piano being built in the United States is all the way back in 1775, with things really getting going in the early 1800s.

There’s no more influential figure in American piano making than Jonas Chickering. Many people may have expected to see one of the Steinway brothers mentioned here, but when you get to the root of it, Jonas Chickering is really the one who laid the important technical foundation for the industry.

Steinway certainly built on this foundation in the late 1800s to become perhaps the most influential piano company of all time, but who can say that would have been the case without the building blocks first laid by Chickering.

The late 1800s
By the late 1800s, pianos were massively popular in America, to the point that a piano was the central object that many families aspired to have in their homes.

Piano production actually peaked by the early 1900s as more consumer industries started popping up to compete for people’s attention and disposable income, but important American design and innovation continued to progress for several decades.

The 1920s: The Gold Age of American Pianos
The 1920s is typically referred to as the golden age of American piano manufacturing, with many important piano building centers along the East coast pumping out large volumes of instruments.

Many companies came into existence in an attempt to ride the way, only to be defunct within 20 to 30 years. Self-playing pianos were a popular fascination that also peeked in the 1920s prior to the onset of the Great Depression.

Great Depression & WWII
As the average size of the American home shrunk into the 1930s and 1940s due to the Great Depression and WWII, so did the pianos being built to accommodate them, with a shift away from high quality, luxurious grand pianos to lower quality, commodified upright and spinet pianos.

This led to massive consolidation within the industry, leaving only 3 brands - Steinway, Baldwin and Charles R. Walter that avoided getting absorbed into larger amalgamations.

The 1950s to 1990s
There was a bit of a renaissance after WWII with the industry experiencing some growth again, however, the decline would set in again by the 1970s. A variety of factors were the cause of this, however, a lack of confidence in the American consumer dovetailing with an era of poor quality instruments certainly contributed.

This left a vacuum which would soon be filled by Japanese pianos from Yamaha and Kawai - instruments of vastly superior quality and durability yet no more expensive than their American counterparts. Pianos North of the border in Canada suffered the same fate.

Gradually, only Steinway, Charles R. Walter and a resurrected Mason & Hamlin remained.

Today
These days, American piano makers have found their footing again, even if things are unpredictable as far as ownership is concerned in the long term. It also happens to be a very small industry in America, without American companies producing a total of around 5,000 pianos annually.

Quality tends to be on par with mid-range German instruments, and the very best of what Japan has to offer.

Musical Qualities of American Pianos
Today’s American pianos are known for being very powerful and mid-range heavy. A big hallmark is the use of hard-rock maple in the rims and maximum projection - both of which go back to the early days of American piano making.

Over the years, many American design innovations have actually influenced German pianos design, with the Germans refining and taking these designs to the next level.

Thanks for watching!