Narrator: It takes about 11 months to craft
just one Steinway & Sons grand piano,
and these instruments don't come cheap.
A Model D concert piano in ebony,
the most affordable finish of any Steinway piano,
will cost you about $187,000.
But that's nowhere near how high prices can reach.
Steinway has produced
two of the most expensive pianos in the world,
worth over $2 million each.
The next most expensive piano
is half the price, at $1.2 million.
[drills whirring]
But with several other premium pianos on the market,
is there something about Steinway's sound that stands out?
And is that what makes these pianos so expensive?
Named the "Rolls-Royce of pianos" by the BBC,
Steinway has produced some of the most
sought-after grand pianos for over 160 years.
It's the piano of choice for Billy Joel,
Lang Lang, and many other professional musicians.
But compared to other high-end-piano makers,
it's often Steinway's sound that sets it apart.
As a performer, I can wear many different masks,
depending on the piece that I'm playing.
For some pieces, you want to be very, very diabolical.
You know, in Liszt.
[playing piano]
And at the same time, lightness.
[playing piano]
Narrator: Creating that sound starts here in New York,
at one of only two Steinway factories in the world.
Each grand piano is 5 to 9 feet long
and weighs between 540 and 990 pounds.
Often, the bigger the piano,
the pricier it will be.
About 85% of a Steinway piano is made of wood,
and one of the most crucial woods
is used for the soundboard.
The soundboard is the life of the instrument,
the soul of the instrument.
This is Alaskan Sitka spruce.
This is the most expensive wood
that we have in the piano.
And we actually get it from the trees,
primarily, that are on the shady side,
the north-facing side of these islands.
So they grow very little each year,
and that means that we have growth rings
that are very close together, not spaced apart.
Narrator: Sitka spruce is used
in other stringed instruments, like guitars,
and it grows in a few areas in the Northwest US,
but more than 50% of
the Alaskan Sitka spruce they source
won't meet Steinway's standards.
The wood must have a very specific
grain density and direction,
both which can impact the quality of sound.
Steinway looks for closely packed, straight grains,
no more than plus or minus 15 degrees
off a 90-degree vertical grain.
There's a reason it's so strict about this.
It's partly why when you press a key on a Steinway piano,
you hear a distinctly long, sustained tone.
The soundboard's edge must attach perfectly
to the piano's rim,
the curved wooden frame of the instrument.
The full rim is made up
of an inner and outer rim.
Some piano makers attach
each of these pieces separately,
but at Steinway,
a team of artisans bends both together.
Steinway says this method
gives the piano a stronger foundation,
lowering the chances it will break.
Steinway uses hard rock maple
for both the inner and outer rims.
The key here is to use wood that will,
again, allow sound to flow freely.
Gilroy: Some companies, as an example,
will have hard rock maple for the outside rim,
but the inside rim, to save money,
they'll use something like lauan.
Lauan is not as dense and hard as hard rock maple.
And when you have your sound waves in that soundboard,
some of them are being absorbed
a little bit by that lauan,
more than they would be by hard rock maple.
[testing piano key]
Narrator: The consistent touch of the keys
is another valuable element
unique to each Steinway piano.
There are just two artisans in the entire factory
trusted with weighing off
all 88 keys of every keyboard.
This ensures each key is balanced,
so a pianist won't have to use more force
to press one key over another.
Gwendolyn Folk: I used to dream about the pianos chasing me.
Now, it's not a problem.
It's up to -- they the boss.
I listen. I pay attention to what it want.
The key to it is pay attention
and watch that hammer. That's the key to it.
Narrator: Each key is connected to a felt hammer.
When pressed, the hammer strikes the strings
to create sound.
A key shouldn't respond to the finger's touch
too quickly or too slowly.
Folk: So, when I go to check the return, it stays.
You see the hesitation? It's no good.
That means it'll stay up in the piano.
Do you see how fast that one is?
That's too fast, so I take this one away.
Then I put this one back,
and it wants the small one.
You see? So I put the small one,
you see how nice it is?
And that tells me what it wants.
[drills whirring]
So that shows you the difference.
Every one is different.
Narrator: One of the most difficult jobs
is the final tone inspection.
The goal is to create
a balanced tone throughout the piano
by slightly adjusting the hammers as needed.
From note to note,
we can soften or harden these mallets,
or hammers, as we call them,
and balance the sound
that they generate into the string.
Narrator: The quality of a piano's tone
is incredibly nuanced,
something only an experienced ear can decipher.
Jones: If I take this note
[plays note]
and then soften it, in this case
I will put a needle in the hammer to soften it,
then you'll hear that tone change.
[plays note]
Becomes a little bit smaller.
And in increments, small steps,
I can go through
and find the notes that are too big,
too bright, and step them down.
[plays piano]
Well, I'm 58 and I started when I was 28,
so that's 30 years and counting.
It's still, I'm still learning how to do this.
It never stops.
Narrator: Like the ways you can customize a Rolls-Royce car,
you can do similarly with a Steinway piano.
Depending on special additions,
veneers, and wood finishes,
prices for a single piece can reach $500,000,
like these pianos designed for Steinway
by Lenny Kravitz.
In the piano vault underneath the factory,
Steinway houses one of the most expensive pianos
it's ever produced,
worth $2.5 million.
On average, the price of a new Steinway piano
increases about 4% every year.
This is partly because
the cost of Alaskan Sitka spruce
increases at a higher rate than inflation,
according to Steinway.
And while the new pieces get more expensive,
old ones become more valuable too.
A Steinway piano can last several decades
with the required touch-ups and restorations.
[hammering]
A 1965 Steinway Model D piano
is worth over $98,000 today.
That's more than 13 times
what it likely sold for.
And although there are several elements
that greatly impact the price,
it's the musician who ultimately decides
what the piano is worth to them.
[playing piano]