Lyon & Healy Harps, Inc. is an American musical instrument manufacturer based in Chicago, Illinois and is a subsidiary of Salvi Harps. Today best known for concert harps, the company's Chicago headquarters and manufacturing facility contains a showroom and concert hall. George W. Lyon and Patrick J. Healy began the company in 1864 as a sheet music shop. By the end of the 19th century, they manufactured a wide range of musical instruments—including not only harps, but pianos, guitars, mandolins, banjos, ukuleles and various brass and other percussion instruments.
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material. It is played using a keyboard, which is a row of keys that the performer presses down or strikes with the fingers and thumbs of both hands to cause the hammers to strike the strings. It was invented in Italy by Bartolomeo Cristofori around the year 1700.
An electric piano is a musical instrument which produces sounds when a performer presses the keys of a piano-style musical keyboard. Pressing keys causes mechanical hammers to strike metal strings, metal reeds or wire tines, leading to vibrations which are converted into electrical signals by magnetic pickups, which are then connected to an instrument amplifier and loudspeaker to make a sound loud enough for the performer and audience to hear. Unlike a synthesizer, the electric piano is not an electronic instrument. Instead, it is an electro-mechanical instrument. Some early electric pianos used lengths of wire to produce the tone, like a traditional piano. Smaller electric pianos used short slivers of steel to produce the tone. The earliest electric pianos were invented in the late 1920s; the 1929 Neo-Bechstein electric grand piano was among the first. Probably the earliest stringless model was Lloyd Loar's Vivi-Tone Clavier. A few other noteworthy producers of electric pianos include Baldwin Piano and Organ Company and the Wurlitzer Company.
Kawai Musical Instruments Manufacturing Co., Ltd. is a musical instrument manufacturing company headquartered in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, Japan. It is best known for its grand pianos, upright pianos, digital pianos, electronic keyboards and electronic synthesizers. The company was founded in August 1927.
HDC YoungChang is a South Korean manufacturer of pianos and industrial wood working machinery, headquartered in Incheon, South Korea. Young Chang currently holds 50% of the South Korean piano market. The company is among the largest and most automated of the world's piano manufacturers.
Mason & Hamlin is a piano manufacturer based in Haverhill, Massachusetts. Founded in 1854, they also manufactured a large number of pump organs during the 19th century.
Teisco was a Japanese musical instrument manufacturing company from 1948 until 1967, when the brand "Teisco" was acquired by Kawai. The company produced guitars as well as synthesizers, microphones, guitar amplifiers and drum kits. Teisco products were widely exported to the United States and the United Kingdom.
Kimball International consists of furniture brands: Kimball, National, Interwoven, Etc., Poppin, D'Style and Kimball Hospitality. It is the successor to W.W. Kimball and Company, the world's largest piano and organ manufacturer at certain times in the 19th and 20th centuries.
The Pearl River Piano Group (广州珠江钢琴集团有限公司) is China's largest piano manufacturer and has the largest piano factory in the world producing more pianos than any other factory. The company was established in 1956 in Guangzhou, Guangdong, China. Pearl River is capable of producing over 100,000 pianos a year, and exports them to more than 80 countries. Today Pearl River pianos are manufactured under a wide range of brands and levels. Each of these series have similar sizes with different scale designs, materials and different sound. The Hallet & Davis line produced by Pearl River is the oldest United States piano name still in production.
Heintzman & Co. is a celebrated Canadian piano manufacturer, formerly based in the Toronto area, whose instruments retain a reputation for quality of workmanship and fineness of tone.
The Baldwin Piano Company is an American piano brand. It was once the largest US-based manufacturer of keyboard instruments and known by the slogan, "America's Favorite Piano". It ceased most domestic production in December 2008, moving its total production to China. A subsidiary of Gibson Brands, Inc., current pianos only display the "Baldwin" name and brand with all of the formerly American made upright models being made in Baldwin's Chinese factory.
Leblanc, Inc. was a musical instruments manufacturing company based in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The company was a woodwind instrument manufacturer known mainly for its clarinets. In 2004 the firm was sold to Conn-Selmer, a division of Steinway Musical Instruments. As a result, Leblanc ceased to exist as an independent operation, becoming a brand.
Schimmel is a German piano maker with factories in Braunschweig, Germany and Kalisz, Poland. Their product line has been described as "the most highly awarded German piano".
The Aeolian Company was a musical-instrument making firm whose products included player organs, pianos, sheet music, records and phonographs. Founded in 1887, it was at one point the world's largest such firm. During the mid 20th century, it surpassed Kimball to become the largest supplier of pianos in the United States, having contracts with Steinway & Sons due to its Duo-Art system of player pianos. It went out of business in 1985.
The Beiijing HsingHai Musical Instruments Corporation LTD., is one of the largest musical instrument manufacturers in China. Based in Beijing, the company was established on June 1, 1949.
Behr Brothers was a New York based piano company founded in 1880 and hailed as a major contributor to the piano industry of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Henry Behr of Hamburg, Germany initially established a piano company in New York alongside Leopold Peck in 1877, named "Behr & Peck", which operated until 1879. In 1880, Behr and his brother Edward Behr went into partnership to form "H. Behr and Brother Piano Company", although this later changed to "Behr, Brother and Company", followed by "Behr Brothers & Company". The company was taken over by Kohler & Campbell in 1910, who continued to produce pianos under the Behr name until the 1950s.
Gulbransen Company was a musical instrument manufacturer of player pianos and home organs in the United States. It also made reed organs. It was originally established in 1904 by Axel Gulbransen as Gulbransen Piano Company.
Torakusu Yamaha was a Japanese businessman and entrepreneur known as the founder of the Yamaha Corporation.
Parsons Music Group is a musical instruments manufacturer and retailer based in Hong Kong, China.
