| He also didn't mention C. Bechstein or Grotrian pianos, which in some circles are considered to be FAR superior to the famous Steinway, as well as being more expensive.
I think that what we are arguing here is a matter of degrees. A great player is going to be a great player in spite of the equipment they are playing. I seem to recall a story once about how the Canadian Brass were at a musician's convention of some sort (possibly a Tuba convention) and someone made a comment to one of them about sounding the way that they do because they are playing "custom" Yamaha instruments. (weren't they all playing Yamahas at one point?) To prove a point, they went over to the display tables, grabbed some horns, used the mouthpieces that were in the horns, didn't even tune...and the end result was that they sounded EXACTLY like the Canadian Brass that we all know and love.
However, let it also be said that if you are playing an instrument that is of lesser quality than some of the other pro level instruments, if you are a good player, you are still going to sound good, you will still be as musical as you ever were, but you as the player are certainly going to notice the difference in the quality of the instrument and you are going to have to work harder to sound as good as you would on a better horn.
It's a matter of compensation really. A good musician is always going to put their best foot forward, so in order to do that, they are going to have to compensate more for the inequities of a lesser instrument. The end result between the two horns, no matter what the extremes in quality (assuming of course that both horns function mechanically as they should) will be very close to the same.
That's my take on it.
__________________ Patrick Gleason
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