Paul, Perhaps you need to rethink your strategy. There are very few administrators or faculty who are willing to jump ship on the concert stage. It's too big of a risk, including for you as a technician. No matter what piano is on the stage, including Steinway, you will find someone who is unhappy with it. Push a brand many have not heard of or played on before and you are setting yourself up for a lot of pain and suffering, no matter how nice the piano is. The key to opening eyes and ears to other instruments is to introduce them in other visible areas that allow students and faculty to experience them without fear of loosing what's known to them. Fine pianos will do their own advertising. Over time they will accept "other" pianos, then you can start a discussion of adding other brands along side of Steinway on the stage - giving them a choice of instruments, not a change. A good place to start is a piano professor with two pianos, one being a worn out Steinway. Put together a proposal to purchase a new piano to allow the professor the use of a better functioning piano while the other is rebuilt. The new piano can always go somewhere else after the rebuilding, so there is no fear of permanent change for the professor. We did this with a Schimmel 213, along side a typical 1996 Steinway B, the older B was taken out for rebuilding. The professor now plays on the Schimmel almost exclusively and doesn't care to have the old B back, but she still has the newer B for those who must play a Steinway. The professor is happy, and the bean counters love the fact that the Schimmel was half the cost of a Steinway. We have since added Schimmel pianos on a small recital stage (on loan), a Choral room and a few uprights (model 120) in professor's rooms. I don't have to ask now about buying Schimmel, as the faculty is comfortable with them and they know I won't attempt to force a brand on them. I plan to do similar strategic planting with other brands as the occasion arises. We, in academia, are in an enviable position when it comes to borrowing or purchasing fine pianos at a substantial discount. Dealers of every brand desperately want the recognition of selling their instruments to the local university. We need to take advantage of this and create a win-win situation. Our budgets go further and the dealer gets a lot of free advertising as faculty and students play their pianos (For example, the local Schimmel dealer has sold to both faculty and students over the last two years, because of their experience with Schimmel at ASU). We have picked up great deals over the years I have been here on Schimmel, Mason & Hamlin, Yamaha, and Boesendorfer for this very reason. Conversely, the worst deal in recent history was 11 years ago when we bought 34 new Steinways (not my decision!). Because the University made it quite clear that they intended on buying only Steinway the competition factor was eliminated and both Steinway and ASU lost out - ASU because of the higher price, a relatively large percentage of mediocre pianos (no selection) and lack of musical diversity, and Steinway because of the large number of very expensive, mediocre pianos (no selection) that has hurt their reputation locally. Competition always improves life, both for the buyer and the seller. ____________________ Rick Florence Senior Piano Technician Arizona State University School of Music ________________________________ From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Paul T Williams Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2007 7:16 AM To: College and University Technicians Subject: Re: [CAUT] becoming an all Steinway School We here at UNL have lots of Steinways. We also have many Mason and Hamlins and Baldwins. In the concert halls, we have 3 Steinway D's, an old Baldwin D, and a Yamaha C-3. All are fine in their venues...Steinways for actual pianists and accompanyists, the Baldwin for chiors, etc, and the Yamaha for Jazz or for space saving needs. We are not an all Steinway school and I'm not sure if in Richard West's era we were approached. I have recently spoken up to look into Bluthner or Yamaha, Sauter, Shimmel, etc for a new concert grand the Director is hoping to get, and I got (not so politely) shut down for each suggestion. I believe only one of the piano faculty is an actual Steinway artist, but they all like the Steinways best. The Hamburg D is the directors and piano faculty's choice for the new piano (whenever that can be funded!) I am in agreement on diversity as well. At least the students have many brands to choose from in the practice rooms. I purposely have regulated some heavy in touch, some lighter, some right on specs and the same with voicing (no specs for voicing :>) ). I think if we were approached by Steinway, my two cents would be to decline the offer for the very reasons stated here and in previous observations... Best, Paul "Michael Wathen" <michael.wathen at wapin.com> Sent by: caut-bounces at ptg.org 12/09/2007 10:33 PM Please respond to College and University Technicians <caut at ptg.org> To "College and University Technicians" <caut at ptg.org> cc Subject Re: [CAUT] becoming an all Steinway School Diversity is the message behind this all. Diversity helps the universe: wether it be populations within society, diversity of opinions, diversity of organic life, diversity of ideas and creativity, or diversity of instruments. With diversity we are insuring the future success of the acoustic piano, without it we are relegating good musicianship and enjoyment of acoustical piano music to a privleged (sp) few. Perhaps, this is what Steinway would perfer. Kudos to the faculty of ASU. Sorry my spell check does not work. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rick Florence" <Rick.Florence at asu.edu> To: "College and University Technicians" <caut at ptg.org> Sent: Sunday, December 09, 2007 8:53 PM Subject: Re: [CAUT] becoming an all Steinway School A few thoughts on becoming an All Steinway School. ASU has been approached a number of times with the "offer" of becoming an All Steinway School. We have rejected the idea each time. I hope future administrators will do the same. It was quite apparent from the most recent proposal, last Fall, that the only advantage is to Steinway. The School does not receive a better price on the products. There is little chance to select pianos, as most schools convert over in a short period of time and there is not enough inventory from which to choose. The Schools are expected to keep their inventory at 90% Steinway products, with all performance areas being exclusively Steinway, eliminating some incredible performance instruments. We were told that Steinway works with schools to ensure proper maintenance schedules are followed. I found this to be an absolute falsehood. I contacted many of the All Steinway schools to get an idea of budgets and personnel. I could find no appreciable difference between the All Steinway schools and other schools. In fact I found many of the All-Steinway schools to be worse off in terms of a maintenance budget and staffing. They all had their new pianos, yet few had a strategic repair or maintenance plan. At the Steinway proposal evening Bruce Stevens asked me if ASU was interested in the prestige of being an All Steinway school. I told him ASU's prestige comes from its program, faculty, and students, which includes our administration's support of piano upkeep. In short, we have built our own reputation. The only one to gain prestige from our becoming an All Steinway school is Steinway. This does not mean that ASU does not appreciate Steinway pianos. We have a large number of Steinway grands (45) and always will. We also have three Steinway artists on our faculty. We simply reject the idea that omitting other fine pianos from our inventory would make us a better school. We feel it would do the opposite. The following is an excerpt from my latest proposal to create an endowment fund for a perpetual purchase and maintenance program. This proposal has been accepted by the faculty, the Dean and our Foundation. We hope to begin raising funds this year. I suppose I should thank Steinway for their part in this, as it was their latest visit that prompted the faculty and administration to accept my counter proposal of assembling/keeping an inventory of the finest pianos from around the world. ____ Exclusive Piano Brands There seems to be a growing push in Academia for Schools of Music to become exclusive to a particular piano manufacturer. Although this practice is a marketing coup for the particular manufacturer, we believe it is a disservice to both faculty and students. We would not ask an artist to limit his or her works to only one medium. Neither would we instruct our music students to perform the works of only one composer. Why then would we limit our musical inquiry and performance to one brand of piano? We appreciate and celebrate the diversity of musical artistry attainable when given the opportunity to select from a number of finely built pianos. We also better prepare our students to adapt to and create music with the wide variety of instruments they will encounter throughout their career. In terms of quality control and product design, a close look at the different models available from all major manufacturers invariably shows a weakness at some point in each of their product lines. If we limit ourselves to one brand, we commit ourselves to their weaknesses as well. It is a valuable tool to be able to combine the strengths of several distinguished manufacturers to best utilize our resources, and afford our students the best education possible. ____ BTW, I understand there ARE All Steinway schools in Europe. They, of course, use the Hamburg Steinway - an apparent advantage of geography. According to the Steinway website they are: City of Edinburgh School of Music, Edinburgh, Scotland Hamburger Konservatorium, Hamburg, Germany Vestjysk Musikkonservatoriums, Esbjerg, Denmark Too bad. There are a lot of great pianos being built in very close proximity to these schools. Rick ________________________ Rick Florence Senior Piano Technician Arizona State University School of Music -----Original Message----- From: caut-bounces at ptg.org on behalf of Richard Brekne Sent: Sun 12/9/2007 9:01 AM To: caut at ptg.org Subject: [CAUT] becoming an all Steinway School We have talked about becomming an all Steinway school... and brought it up at a recent visit by the regional sales rep from Hamburg. It is our understanding that no such school exists in Europe... that this is an American thing. We are looking into the possibilities of establishing the first such school here. If we manage it.... all our non-Steinway inventory will have to leave our ownership... including a rather ok CF III that is 4 years old now. All in all... for better and for worse... I'd have to say that the All Steinway School stamp is one that is very very much worth the dark sides of any such marriage is bound to have. Cheers RicB hi folks I'd be interested to hear experiences from those techs. working at schools that have become ''All Steinway''. Is it very restrictive on the purchase choice of instruments. What happened to existing inventory. Was administration and faculty won over by becoming ''All Steinway''. How are the Boston pianos holding up etc etc.......... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/caut.php/attachments/20071211/2ca3f9dd/attachment-0001.html
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC