Story of this piano.

The origin of the Falcone piano name came in 1985, with the opening of a factory in Massachusetts by an American entrepreneur Santi Falcone, who by this date had acquired a number of historically famous but defunct piano brand names, among which was Mason & Hamlin.

The goals for the Falcone piano were very ambitious technically, but financial failure ensued, and the name was then picked up by the Korean manufacturer Sejung, which began building an inexpensive but reliable line of pianos using the Falcone brand name. This line continued until 2012, when the large Chinese piano maker Parsons acquired the rights to the line.

The Asian industrial revolution beginning about 1960 took over most world markets by 1975. American piano manufacturing was clearly decimated by this evolution, leaving only a few piano makers in American by 1990. “Chinese” — Asian pianos in general — pianos flooded into the markets everywhere, and came to represent a cheap, inferior and unreliable product. Quality improved dramatically by 2000, and reasonably reliable and inexpensive pianos were available, made by many different Asian manufacturers. Consumers began to benefit from it all.

With this background characterizing the entry-level piano market, I wanted to determine just how good a “Chinese” unit might be if it were given sufficient technical service, like higher level pianos receive. I bought the piano new in 2010 as an example of an average Asian piano made with satisfactory parts, but with little refined service supplied by either the factory or by dealers.

This piano had a very nice outside finish, a mahagony venier evenly stained with clear polyester covering — a very simple finish for a factory to do, but when well executed is actually very nice looking. The two photos above right show the new packaging, and the “slow fall” mechanism on the key cover, an expensive accessory for a “cheap” piano.

I then used the piano for extensive experimentation with tuning temperaments, and I arrived at some good conclusions about how to refine the tuning for this level product. Then I did some voicing procedures similar to those done on concert level pianos to give them a smoother and more “singing” tone. The result was that I still use some of the modified procedures I developed for this type of piano, and thus found the experiment to be valuable toward my professional work. The one who benefitted most was the purchaser, who found a piano that played many times better than an equal new one from the dealer!