Audible Sensations

In simple terms, instruments may be described as conduits for music, vehicles for a player’s individual musical expression, and in one sense that’s true, but I think they are so much more than that.

Whether in a recording or performance setting, each instrument brings its own sound with distinct tone, character and colour for a player to harness, manipulate and respond to, producing results that may only come from that particular pairing. It’s a dialogue; a partnership that can become instinctive and symbiotic. In the same way a painter might choose to work with watercolours or oils and produce drastically different results, the instrument is more than just a tool: in the hands of a musician, it too has formative influence on what’s ultimately created.

The origin story of iconic guitar-amp brand, Marshall, serves to embody this principle. In the early 1960s, founder, Jim Marshall, owned and ran a west-London music shop. Dissatisfied with the existing market offerings, his customer base of emerging players - including Pete Townshend (The Who) and Ritchie Blackmore (Deep Purple) - enquired as to whether Marshall could himself create an amp that delivered a new and different kind of sound: one they’d sought but not yet found. He assembled a crack team to work on prototypes and thus created the first Marshall amp. With those needs met, the requests shifted from tone to volume: guitarists wanted power and presence to match drummers’ newly aggressive playing styles and in turn to allow guitarists to hold their own in larger venues. The first offering was an epic but unwieldy 8-speaker cabinet, refined shortly after into modular, stackable 4-speaker cabs, and thus the (Marshall) stack was born.

Marshall is a brand essentially commissioned into existence by its audience, and this spirit of innovation and direct collaboration with musicians has served to weave them into the fabric of music culture. This is where they remain, not only via their amps, but as a music brand supporting the creation and enjoyment of music more widely, whether via their lifestyle audio product ranges or through their label, Marshall Records, whose activities include working with emerging artists to record with a dedicated production and engineering team at Marshall’s own state-of-the-art studio.

Piano maker Steinway & Sons is held in similar reverence to Marshall, albeit residing for the most part in a different musical sphere(s) and with a history that runs just over a century further back. Founded in New York in 1853, Steinway too was a pioneering maker: an early adopter of forefront piano manufacturing techniques that became benchmark standards industry wide. Innovations included full cast-iron frames delivering higher string tension and in so greater acoustic volume. As Marshall did for the guitar world, these enhanced capabilities marked a milestone shift in piano performance, making larger venues viable for concerts as well as inspiring composers to write pieces with a larger dynamic range and for pianists to perform them more expressively.

For Steinway today, this connection to the craft of musical creation and performance remains at the heart of what they do, via their artist programme. This delivers meaningful, continued ‘on the ground’ engagement with pianists and their pianos long after they leave the New York and Hamburg workshop floors. As part of the application to be a Steinway Artist, a pianist must commit to performing exclusively on Steinway pianos, but rather than being built on a commercial exchange, the arrangement is instead on the basis of an artist’s genuine preference for Steinway pianos as their instrument of choice.

Delivering this, Steinway has a dedicated team led by Director of Concert & Artist Services, Ulrich Gerhartz, whose sole purpose is to support the artists using their pianos in concert halls around the world, delivering highly specific technical setups to their individual preferences, all in pursuit of exquisite sound and musicality. In fact, Ulrich was recently in London working with Evgeny Kissin to fine-tune a Steinway Model D - their definitive concert grand piano - to his desired specification, ahead of a performance at Barbican Hall.

In Steinway & Sons and in Marshall we have two institutions of music culture established a century apart but who share a common thread of authenticity: innovation and collaboration in service to music. Their instruments and cultural presence transcend functionality; instead, the role they play is more akin to muse to the artist(s).

A few years ago I took myself to Hank’s on Denmark Street having convinced myself I needed a new acoustic guitar. I headed up the creaky staircase to the first floor, which is literally covered in guitars perched on stands with only a single narrow pathway winding through them to allow for navigation. I spent a couple of hours trying out the usual suspects, none of which set my heart on fire, before spotting a beautiful acoustic hanging on the wall. It was by an American maker I’d never heard of, but as I started playing it I knew I had to have it, a mild panic quickly rising warning me not to let it out of my sight. The way it felt and sounded was like nothing I’d played before. Since then I’ve read up and now understand that they’re designed for the style I spend the most time playing. Hence, it works for me in a way that it might not for others. But that’s part of why I love it. It makes me want to play. I guess it’s about making an instinctive, authentic connection of some kind.

Now, of the things I own, it’s the last I’d ever part with.

I also have a Marshall stack that I saved up for as an aspiring teen. Likewise, I hope to keep hold of that too.

So, to complete my holy trinity, that just leaves a Steinway.

Josh Shires is Audio Director at Here, working with our clients to define and create the sound of their brands.