Two Industry leaders Pass

Eugene Czerwinski founder of Cerwin-Vega died on Aug. 6, 2010 at the age of 83. A former Aerospace Engineer, he began making waves in music and audio with the development of the first solid state hi-fi amplifier in 1957. It delivered an unprecedented 125 watts of output power. He earned an Academy Award in 1974 for the development of the twin 18 inch Sensoround sub-woofer for the release of the Movie "Earthquake". He will be remembered for his mastery of the art and science of engineering and for his affection for superb bass reproduction.

Two of my daughters bought me a subscription to Netflix for father's day. I have made heavy use of it in the last month and discovered a number of gems. One that may be of interest to many of you is a documentary lasting one hour and 21 minutes which follows the progress of a Steinway Concert Grand serial number L1037 as it makes it's year long journey through the Steinway piano factory. One of 2000 pianos that Steinway makes annually, we witness the extensive and meticulous hand labor that goes into the making of one of these masterpieces. Starting at $25,000 dollars and with essentially no upper limit these pianos are made in the exact same process that they have been built for the last 100 years.

Individual craftsmen, representing every continent on the planet, describe their particular contribution to the process. With no automation, and rarely even a power tool, every piece of the piano is hand fabricated and assembled, many steps requiring a full days labor by individual craftsmen. The process culminates in 4 chip tunes, a rough tune, a fine tune and then the final voicing process all done by ear, no computer tuning allowed.