Fred,
The building is open from 6:00 am to 11:00 pm. You're right in that most the time is taken. But the first two and the last one or two hours is not. That would be about 3-4 hours each day, or about 18-24 hours of "practice time" available to students each week. 20 hours (rounded off) x 52 weeks = (let me see here...) about one set of hammers too many!
Practice room pianos that are scheduled and actually played those 17 hours per day go through about a set every three years. (Really worn out) The students that would be allowed into the concert halls are the powerful ones! You know what I mean. One of them = about 2 or 3 of the "common" players. Hence part of my distress.
Jim
From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Fred Sturm
Sent: Thursday, December 03, 2009 3:44 PM
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Practicing on concert instruments...again...
On Dec 3, 2009, at 3:17 PM, Jim Busby wrote:
I didn't put this in my post but he (the director) said (when told we couldn't keep it in tune as we do now if he did this) "It may just have to be out of tune for a concert, and we'll just have to live with that".
That's very interesting. Strange mindset. It's more important that the students practice on the piano more than that their recital and recording thereof have a decent tuning.
We'll never have this issue arise, because practice time is limited by time available in the hall, and it is booked pretty solid except early fall semester. Nobody can get more than one rehearsal, and some scramble to try to get that, what with a couple sections of Music Appreciation, various studio classes, master classes, recording sessions, and the demands of performances and one rehearsal per. I book tunings way ahead, and they always get eaten into. There aren't enough hours in the day for the hall. But we are bursting at the seams in general. I can hardly find an hour open in a lot of classrooms from 8 am to 8 pm.
Regards,
Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico
fssturm at unm.edu<mailto:fssturm at unm.edu>
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