Pianos in Tune With the Times : U.S. Firms Hope to Take Advantage of Cheaper Dollar, Grab Big Share of Booming Sales From Asian Rivals

When Matthew Strandberg began piano lessons four years ago, he was so shy that when someone spoke to him he would look down at his shoes. Today, the 9-year-old is still bashful, but when he sits at a piano before an audience he blossoms with confidence in his music.

Judy Garcia abandoned piano lessons at age 14 because of boys and other distractions more interesting than Miss Cook, her piano teacher, who “smelled of Vick’s cough drops.” Today, at 47, the Fresno school teacher is back at the keyboard playing melodies she learned in the third grade and Christmas carols.

Pianos are striking a new musical chord in thousands of Americans across the country no matter what their age. Like generations before them, a new crop of youngsters are doing time at the keyboard. Many of their baby boom parents are taking up piano, too. For many of today’s yuppies, a piano--a grand, of course--is the new status symbol at home.

This resurgence of interest is sweet music to piano makers. Piano sales are up, rising for the third year in a row. The American Music Conference reported piano shipments in 1987 to 174,993 units or $682.73 million, up from 166,555 units or $619.76 million. Piano sales began a sharp dropoff in 1980, hitting a 25-year low of 151,300 units or $480.7 million in 1985. Consumers put piano purchases low on their list of priorities because of high interest rates and a preoccupation with computers, video games and other high-tech gizmos.

Sales of electronic keyboards and pianos, which mimic the sounds of traditional acoustic pianos but cost less, have been rising sharply. “The thing that is making music and keyboard study more accessible to people are electronic instruments. They are relatively inexpensive and portable,” explained Susan Kincaid, director of the Sherwood Conservatory of Music, a Chicago community arts school.

If sales of traditional pianos continue to rise as expected, U.S. piano makers--Baldwin, Kimball and Steinway--hope to stop short their Japanese and South Korean competitors who have come to dominate the market with less expensive pianos. “If things go as I see them, we can take a sizable market share,” said Dennis Guillaume, director of marketing for the piano division of Kimball Keyboard products.

Prices of imported pianos have risen about 20% because of the high value of the Japanese yen and Korean won against the dollar. That has narrowed the price difference between imported and U.S. pianos, “which should augur well for domestic makers,” explained Dick Harrison, chairman and chief executive of Baldwin Piano & Organ, a Loveland, Ohio, firm that accounts for about 30% of all pianos sold. Piano prices range from $1,500 to $90,000.

Meanwhile, American manufacturers are discovering new demand overseas now that their pianos are more affordable. Exports of U.S. pianos rose 45% to $7 million in 1987 from 1986, according to the American Music Conference.

“It’s more competitive than ever before in the piano market,” explained C. Terry Lewis, general manager of the piano division of Yamaha Music Corp. in Buena Park, a subsidiary of the Japanese firm. Korean companies such as Young Chang and Hyundai have made recent big gains in the low end of the piano market.

Yamaha, which has been popular with jazz and pop artists, began an aggressive program last year to lure concert pianists--long the domain of Steinway of Newton, Mass.--to switch to the Japanese brand. Andre Watts used a Yamaha for his 25th anniversary concert in January. The artist got a rave review, but the piano was panned by the New York Times music critic.

Alfredo Flores Jr., president of Alamo Music Center in San Antonio, Tex., said of Yamaha: “All of sudden they are starting to think that ‘we are not that inexpensive piano that we were. We can’t get market share that way so we have to go into the prestige market.”’

A key to today’s interest in pianos is a new attitude toward music. The emphasis is on learning for recreation, fun and enjoyment instead of a strict, old-fashioned training mode for a pianist whose ultimate destination might be Carnegie Hall.

The renewed popularity of pianos signals, some music watchers say, a return to basics: family entertainment away from the video cassette recorder or computers to an enjoyable way of learning music as well as dexterity, poise and confidence.

“Most people have an innate musical ability or potential,” said Dr. Frank R. Wilson, a Walnut Creek, Calif., neurologist and author of “Tone Deaf and All Thumbs? An invitation to Music-Making for Late Bloomers and Non-Prodigies.”

“The fantasy is ‘why not me?’ The piano has a tremendous position in the collective psyche,” explained Wilson, who maintains that learning music helps physical, mental, emotional and social growth as well.

Piano makers are working hard to keep up the new interest. The Piano Manufacturers Assn. of Dallas will launch a $200,000 advertising campaign to promote pianos.

Gap Being Filled

Because many people buy a piano just for decoration, Kimball Piano & Organ has come out with a line of contemporary style pianos in 10 designer colors, including seafoam green and gunmetal gray with mother-of-pearl flakes. Grand piano sales in 1987 rose 18%--almost double the rate of all piano sales--from the year before, and they accounted for nearly half of all piano sales. “Most people realize they look at a piano 90% of the time and perform 10% of the time. It is not only a musical instrument but a predominant piece of furniture in a home,” explained Kimball’s Guillaume.

Ultimately, no matter what the shape, size or color of the piano, the instrument symbolizes a new involvement in music.

“Not only is mom traditionally encouraging music participation in the family, but dad is even coming along, getting involved in the electronic end of it,” said Flores of the popularity of electronic keyboards and pianos.

“One of the reasons the market is expanding, is that there is a gap being filled,” explained Flores. “Dad or mom didn’t want to sit at a piano with a traditional piano teacher and Beethoven. This thing (electronic keyboards and pianos) gives them an option. It is a piano but it has fun options--ear phones, color lights, some are played by following the bouncing ball.”

“If they start on a small electronic piano, they may eventually want an acoustic piano and they are really different instruments,” Harrison said. “With an electronic instrument, if someone hits the keys, it sounds the same no matter who hits it. An acoustic piano requires a different touch and response.”

Teaching these days is requiring a different touch, too, with more emphasis on making piano lessons fun for very young children. Matthew Strandberg began his piano lessons with Ann Patrick at her Fullerton music store even before he started school. At a weekly group class, he has been learning piano, music theory and composition through game playing and other innovative approaches. His younger brother Tommy, 5, began lessons 9 months ago.

Their mother, Carol Strandberg, said: “My kids don’t want to practice but they always want to go to the lesson.” Since she sits through her children’s classes, Strandberg says, the lessons have been a wonderful refresher course for her. “I knew how to play, but I never knew why or the counts.”

Other baby boomers are returning to the keyboard or trying for the first time. “For years, we always said the heart of the business is the child whose parent decided he or she would learn piano. That part of the market is still there strongly,” explained Guillaume, director of marketing at Kimball.

“The interesting thing that is beginning to develop is the baby boomer who says, ‘Gee, I wish I could continue my piano.’ Now in their 40s, they have a place for a piano at home and are successful enough to consider something like a piano and they think they can go back to playing.”