Here’s a great article by Jeffery Tucker, editor of mises.org, entitled The End of the US Piano Industry. The Article draws some parallels between the symbolic nature of the car in American culture today and the history of the American piano industry. Now, most of the musicians I know don’t care much about cars frankly most of us drive Hondas or Toyotas. (I’ll gladly drive a Ford, when they actually make a good one. After all, a good product sells itself.) Honestly, I’d rather live in a city that has a good enough public transit system where I wouldn’t need a car. Anyway, when I was growing up, and still to this day, it is a goal of mine to have a Steinway in my house. It is a status….well, the article explains all of that. Honestly, doesn’t a piano seem like a better cultural symbol than a car that loses half of its value the minute you drive it off the lot. How far we have come…Yay Us!

Article: The End of the US Piano Industry

I am an avid reader of Seth Godin’s Blog and this recent post, really hit the nail on the head. As my quintet, The Forefront, will be releasing a record in early 2009, we have been plastering that all over everything that we can. However, Seth points out that this sounds so vague that is makes it seem further off than it actually is. It’s next year, in 2009. That seems distant, however it is only 3 months away. It is funny how our language can create illusions that can actually be detrimental to the message that we are trying to convey. Perhaps something like, “New Record Coming in 3 MONTHS!” would work?  Well I think I can work on that a bit. Check it out!