Showing posts with label Yamaha piano. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Yamaha piano. Show all posts

Friday 26 September 2014

Kemble Pianos

Kemble Pianos was established in 1911 by Michael Kemble in Stoke Newington. Details about the history of Kemble pianos are hard to find - even on the Kemble website, the ‘history’ page is confined to 9 bullet points. 

And yet, Kemble Pianos, having survived both the war periods and the consequent economic hardships, went on to build good, quality pianos and attract the attention of the giant Japanese piano maker - Yamaha. 

Examples of early Kemble pianos must survive but as a tuner in the SW of England, rarely does one see a pre-1920 Kemble. During the post, First World War years, reestablishing the momentum of sales must have been particularly difficult. 

A 1960s Minx
When the ‘minipiano’ became so popular, Kembles Launched the ‘Minx’. The Minx was a neat, small piano with a full keyboard - probably the best of the minipianos on offer. As an overstrung piano and yet being so short, the design of the Minx was all about getting a small piano to perform and sound as well as what was expected from a standard upright piano. The distinctive Minx remained in production for 30 years! The case altered in later years but the inner workings of the the piano were recognisably very similar to the original.      

Under Robert Kemble, in the 1950s Kemble Pianos moved to a factory in Bletchley, near Milton Keynes. It must have been around this time that the The Kemble ‘Classic’ was designed, built and launched - another small but full 7 octave piano - taller than the Minx, but a very slim, 47 cm from front to back.

In 1968, Kembles began a joint venture with The Yamaha Corporation of Japan and, a few years later, Yamaha-Kemble Music (UK) Ltd. was formed. In 1985 Kemble and Co. started making some of the Yamaha range of pianos to be sold in the UK market. The Kemble pianos now reflected the Yamaha influence and used the high quality Yamaha actions in their pianos.

Kemble pianos, since 2009, are now made in Yamaha's factories in the Far East but the Kemble name - quite deservedly, lives on!


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Wednesday 1 January 2014

Yamaha Pianos

The piano industry in Japan was slow to gather momentum during the later years of the 19th century. Early development of the piano was very much a European affair. At the Paris Exposition in 1878 a Japanese square piano (not a Yamaha) was exhibited. In 1880 Torakusu Yamaha began making Western musical instruments.

Beginning by building an organ, and confident enough of its qualities, he carried it over the mountains of Hakone to the Music Institute for their inspection and approval. Perhaps unkindly, the organ was harshly criticised for its poor tuning. This set-back only spurred Tarasuku on to further studies. Like any self-respecting musical instrument maker, he began studying music theory and tuning!

After much hard work, he mastered the basics and was able to apply his newly acquired knowledge and deeper understanding to making his western musical instruments.

Piano tuners are almost duty bound to approve of Yamaha's using tuning forks in their logo - after all, it emphasises the fundamental importance of tuning!

The 3 tuning forks of the Yamaha Logo represent the 3 pillars of the business - technology, production and sales. They also symbolise the essential elements of music: melody, harmony and rhythm.

He began production of pianos in 1900 and by 1910 he was making 600 pianos per year. The 20th century threw up many challenges for the piano industry - especially in Japan. Yamaha lost a factory to fire in 1922 and and office to an earthquake in 1923. The second world war was no less devastating. After the war, Yamaha restarted production with the benefit of casting their own metal frames.

The constant quest for product improvement has borne fruit in Yamaha's unquestionable reputation for consistency and a rugged reliability. Their pianos have become an industry bench-mark standard.


Directory of Piano Makers

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Wednesday 15 August 2012

The changing face of the Piano Trade

It is lamentable that the Piano Manufacturing Industry in England - once so enviable and influential, has all but disappeared without trace. Back in the 1970s, noticing the first few imported pianos from unfamiliar makers, one could sense that change was in the air. Complacency in any industry is a bad policy. Once decline sets in and the momentum gathers pace, the outcome is depressing.

Seeing a Yamaha piano for the first time was like seeing a 'cloud the size of a man's hand' - a cloud that in no time at all, filled the heavens and brought a great deluge of rain! The first batches of Yamaha pianos delivered to the local piano shop created astonishment. It was clear the Japanese piano was going to be a threat to the market dominance enjoyed for so long by the English piano. How was it that a piano made in Japan could be sold for just a little more than a piano made in the UK? 

The best British pianos seemed to be rather average compared to the imported pianos that soon dominated that new-piano-market. One by one, the English manufacturers ceased production so that in a few decades, we saw the total loss of an industry. Alas for the English Piano!

The more recent economic downturn has added further woes and bad news to Piano shops up and down the country. Pianos are regarded as a luxury item - and are one of the first items of expenditure to be delayed or postponed entirely. 

Where will all this take us? Only the 'fittest' of piano shops will survive, and it will take a few years of successful trading to put a smile back on the face of the piano trade. 

Buying and selling pianos on eBay may turn out to be the method of choice for bargain hunters  - but there are plenty of dangers to be met with here. Off-loading an awful piano is quite easy if you can produce a few good photos! Auction Houses have, for a very long time, been selling what other people no longer want. Maybe, ebay will be able to preserve a strong, residual demand for the good old-fashoned, traditional piano! However, buying online is quite a gamble when there can be no substitute for sitting at the piano itself - to hear it, feel it and to try to answer the question: Do I like this piano enough to buy it?


Tuner's Journal

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