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“The Yamaha Piano Technology Tour is a very innovative concept,” says YCA Piano Division Director of Academic and Institutional Affairs Mike Bates, who headed the tour. “No one else does this type of follow up.” Team members included co-leader and YCA Director of Piano Services Terry Niimi; Yamaha District Managers Jim Levesque, Bernie McCaffery, Denny Glander, and Tom Mapson; piano technicians Mark Wisner and David Durben; national concert piano technicians Tom Kaplan and Craig Fehrenbacher; Yamaha Artist Services concert technician Max Michimoto; and special guest piano technicians Yoshitake Suzuki and Kazuyoshi Hori from Yamaha Corporation of Japan.

“This tour was a uniquely successful activity, which highlighted the important ongoing relationships between several departments of the Yamaha Piano Division–Sales/ Marketing, Academic Affairs, Piano Service, and Yamaha Artist Services, and Yamaha dealers throughout the U.S.,” says Bates. “Dealers have benefited greatly from the high visibility of PTT3 and Yamaha’s groundbreaking commitment to service after the sale. In speaking with many Yamaha dealers throughout the country, many reported a dramatically enhanced ability to develop new and existing institutional relationships as a direct result of our presence in their cities.”

In addition to NYU, the PTT3 team also worked on Yamaha pianos at Ross Institute in East Hampton, Long Island; Westminster Choir College of Rider University in Princeton, NJ; The Francis Clark “New School for Music Study” in Kingston, NJ; Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA; University of Massachusetts in Lowell; Michigan State University in East Lansing; Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant; University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music; and Brigham Young University School of Music in Provo, UT.

Local dealers who participated in the tour were: Frank & Camille’s Keyboard Centers (New York, NY), Freehold Music Centers (Princeton, NJ), Jacobs Music (Kingston, NJ), Boston Organ & Piano (Boston, MA), Falcetti Music (Lowell, MA), Marshall Music (Lansing, MI), Henderson Piano Co. (Cincinnati, OH), and Keith Jorgenson’s (Orem/Provo, UT).

More than 30 university technicians attended these hands-on sessions and more than 90 Yamaha pianos were serviced during PTT3. The next Piano Technology Tours are slated for Spring and Summer 2002.

Two Industry Giants, Working Together

or more than two decades, the skilled craftsmen of Yamaha have employed the hands-on experience gained in the production of musical instruments and acoustic equipment to help set new standards of quality in another industry: the manufacture of wooden automotive interior components. Yamaha creates natural wood automobile components for the Lexus LS 430 and SC 430, as well as other top class models manufactured both in Japan and the United States.

“As a luxury automaker, Toyota/Lexus appreciates the attention to quality, precision, and skilled craftsmanship and design that has made Yamaha a leader in the production of musical instruments,” says Terry Lewis, senior vice president, Yamaha Corporation of America.

The Toyota 2000GT boasted one of Yamaha’s first natural wood interiors and, by 1985, Yamaha began full production of natural wood instrument panels, consoles and door trims. Engineers skilled in all phases, from fabrication to finishing, selected California walnut after extensive testing to meet stringent requirements for resistance to temperature and humidity extremes, light, shock, abrasions, and chemicals.

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