How Steinway Pianos are Made

The making of a Steinway piano is a time-honored process involving the hands of many skilled craftspeople over the course of almost a full year. Steinway & Sons pianos are built in just two factories worldwide – one in Astoria, NY and one in Hamburg, Germany.

Both factories have been building pianos for well over a century, and although Steinway has always been at the cutting edge in utilizing and perfecting the latest technology where it could make the piano better, we have found that certain things are simply better when done by skilled craftspeople than by a machine.

For that reason, many parts of the process in building a Steinway have remained essentially unchanged for generations. So much so, that they were able to take decades-old audio from a narrated factory tour by the late John H. Steinway (great-grandson of Henry E. Steinway, who founded our great company in 1853) and use it as the narration for footage shot at the Steinway NY factory in 2011 by Ben Niles, producer of the documentary film “Note by Note” (http://www.notebynotethemovie.com).

Enjoy this look inside the Steinway New York factory, narrated in detail by the late, great John Steinway.

To learn more about Steinway & Sons, visit http://www.steinway.com.

January 19 in Music History

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. 1908 ~ Merwyn Bogue, Comic singer, sang and played trumpet with Kay Kyser’s Kollege of Musical Knowledge, big bandleader

. 1939 ~ Phil Everly, American rock-and-roll singer and guitarist, The Everly Brothers with his brother Don

. 1942 ~ Michael Crawford, Singer. Some of his best known roles have been in The Phantom of the Opera, Condorman, Hello, Dolly!, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, The Knack

. 1943 ~ Janis Joplin, American blues-rock singer and songwriter with Big Brother and The Holding Company and formed Kozmic Blues Band

. 1944 ~ Shelley Fabares, Singer, Nanette Fabray’s niece

. 1946 ~ Dolly Parton, American country-music singer and songwriter, ACM Entertainer of the Year in 1977 and CMA Entertainer of the year, 1978

. 1949 ~ Robert Palmer, Singer, guitarist

. 1952 ~ Dewey Bunnell, Singer, guitarist with America

. 1953 ~ Sixty-eight percent of all TV sets in the U.S. were tuned to CBS-TV this day, as Lucy Ricardo of I Love Lucy gave birth to a baby boy, just as she actually did in real life , following the script to the letter! The audience for the program was greater than that watching the inauguration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower the following day. The baby was Desi Arnaz, Jr., entertainer and singer with Dino, Desi and Billy

. 1970 ~ The soundtrack of the film, “Easy Rider”, the movie that made a star of Peter Fonda, became a gold record. It was the first pop-culture, film soundtrack to earn the gold award.

. 1971 ~ Ruby Keeler made her comeback in the play, “No, No Nanette”, which opened at the 46th Street Theatre in New York City. Keeler played the role of Sue Smith in the revival of the 1925 hit musical. The show played for 861 performances.

. 1976 ~ The Beatles turned down an offer of $30 million to play together again on the same stage. Rock promoter Bill Sargent still doesn’t understand why the group turned down his generous offer.