Pianos by road, sea and air

A call today from one of our regular piano moving contractors confirmed the collection date from our showroom later this week of a lovely Steinway model O grand that is being sent to China.  This exquisitely beautiful piano will no doubt get well used in its new home and it set me thinking about the vast number of pianos continually on the move day in day out, between not only destinations in this country but between one side of the world and the other.

It is quite mind blowing to think of what this particular piano has been through since it was manufactured in 1920.  Sent from Hamburg to London, then from London to Huddersfield, then to the brand new owner and undoubtedly various moves before it made its way to me.  Now there is much handling of the piano to see it go to London to be packed and crated and then transported yet again to the airport before being loaded onto a cargo plane for its journey to China.  More handling will of course take place before it rests in its new home.

At any one time there must still be thousands of pianos on the move everyday, either by road, rail, sea or air and this particular piano move is just one more with a consignment number, unnoticeable and non special to most but of great significance to the new owner who will no doubt be very happy when it is finally in its resting place.  I for one will be glad to know when it is safely there.

New website!

A fresh look to our the new Shackell Pianos website today, please take a look.  I am always pleased to hear from anyone with comments or views or better still news you might have on your own piano and why you love it so.  Send me photos of your piano and anything that you feel is special about it – all makes of piano are welcome.

A big thank you then to Kelly at Kaydee Web Design for all her hard work in setting the new site up.

Photographing Pianos

Photographing pianos has become part of everyday life in running the sales side of the business and the somewhat tedious work of resizing and editing images ready for the website goes hand in hand with the efforts to have them ready to photograph.  I seem to spend ages looking at them from different angles like a film director making a movie and I’m always looking for that new shot, one not done before.  So I was quite pleased with this one today showing the nice blend of colours of oak, ebony and in the background – mahogany.  I had come to think that there were no more new angles but I guess if you keep looking there will be as shown today.

A most interesting day

A bright sunny day greeted us on Saturday last as we headed down to Maidstone to deliver our Steinway D grand for the highly talented Lara Melda to perform the Grieg Piano Concerto and following this my colleague and I headed into the lovely Kent countryside.  A short drive later and we were at the Musical Instrument Museum, Finchcocks.  Here readily assembled were some of the UK’s most respected piano technicians as we waited for what promised to be a most interesting day.

Thanks to Allen Wright, one of the UK Steinway & Son’s technicians, his fellow countryman Bill Shull, a native of California had flown over to give a seminar on the early development of the Steinway piano.  This period covers 1853 to 1892 and we were entertained by his many slides and images of some of the earliest Steinways still existing.  Bill is a minefield of information on Steinway and paid credit to the many people who had helped him gather this huge chest of information over the last 30 years.

We witnessed photos of the many great patents filed by the Steinway family in the leaping years of piano design, every piano you touch today has something to do with these prize winning pianos and let it be known that it was not an easy ride making what we understand today to be the world’s most desired piano.

Of particular interest to me is new information to my own knowledge that the Hamburg factory, opened in 1880, was in fact only an assembly plant for part constructed pianos from New York until 1908.  It was not until this time that the German side of the business made pianos from scratch without assistance from New York.  This fact along with many others reminds us that you never stop learning and clearly there is still much to take in and absorb in our trade.

So the next time you play, or hear a Steinway piano being played I would like you to consider that it took many, many years and innovative ideas to get to what we have not today, but indeed 100 years ago.  They say the world was not made in a day, a Steinway was not made in more than that.

MG PB goes back to Abingdon

After telling you about all the rushing about I do at work it was nice for me to take advantage of the glorious weather we have enjoyed in the last few days and take some time out from pianos!  After a pleasant Saturday morning dealing with the sale of a lovely Hoffmann upright piano in the showroom I downed tools and set sail for Abingdon on Thames in the MG PB.  I was actually on my way to steam the Burrell that is kept in that part of the country but could not resist the chance to park the MG outside the MG car club in Abingdon, home of the long lost MG car factory.  I remember all too well in the late 1970′s peering through the fence at the MG works looking at rows of plastic bumper MG midgets all destined I expect for the USA.  Our friends on the other side of the Atlantic have taken a great fancy to our very british little sports cars over the years and the fascination still holds true to this day.

In amazing sunshine I then steamed the Burrell and trundled down to the local pub now renamed after a recent buy out and take over as a free house.  In recent years we have seen the famous (in traction engine terms) pub in Appleford called the ‘Carpenters Arms’ gradually spiral into complete defeat and the sale by Greene King was contemplated as something of a passing disaster by many. However out of the blue has come along a very enterprising lady and in no time at all the pub now named the ‘Appleford Bar and Grill’ is doing a roaring trade with a growing reputation for its excellent food.  This just goes to show that personal vision and involvement will often outride previous setbacks and poor trade and this is an excellent example of how it can be done with determined effort.  Good luck to them I say.