[CAUT] Concert hall and studio pianos

[Israel Stein]

Fri, 4 Dec 2009 21:37:27 -0600 Dennis Johnson <johnsond at stolaf.edu>:

> I've got to chime in on that too and put my feet down on the regular hours.
> There are those rare people who prefer working night shifts, but we are not
> paid enough for those expectations.  Staying late or coming in early on
> occasion is normal, but that is also above and beyond which all the staff do
> now and then.  I probably have a little issue with those very few who would
> prefer us to never be seen and not deal with the reality.  You can't allow
> that to happen.  It's got to be a mutually respectful or it's not going to
> work.
>
> dennis
Dennis and all,

This is an area where we here at San Francisco State can consider 
ourselves extremely lucky, for two reasons:

1. We have a union contract which mandates that we cannot be required to 
work outside our regularly scheduled hours without overtime compensation 
(us being half-time employees it would be straight-time compensation up 
to 40 hours a week, but there is still added cost - we cannot be forced 
to take "compensatory time off" instead of overtime pay).
2. We do not work for the School of Music and Dance (SMD) but for an 
independent central service entity called Creative Arts Technical 
Services (CATS), which provides technical services to all the schools 
within the College of Creative Arts - Theater, Music and Dance, 
Broadcast and Electronic Communications, Sculpture, Painting, Industrial 
Art and Design, etc.

The result is that the SMD Director and the Music faculty are our 
clients and have to cooperate with us in order to get the service they 
require. They get their required service by negotiation - not by issuing 
orders -  and we have the backing of a Director-level manager in case of 
any conflicts or complaints, who protects our (and his department's) 
interests. His basic attitude is - if they don't want to cooperate, it's 
their problem, not ours. Also, SMD has to actually pay fees to CATS for 
any service that is outside the routine service (such as overtime 
tunings). Another effect of this system is that our direct supervisor 
(who comes from a theater background - stage electrician) respects us as 
fellow trained professionals - and does not consider us his professional 
inferiors, as music deans, directors and faculty often tend to do.

I don't know how this system came about, but it seems to me that a lot 
of problems we are plagued with could be avoided if piano service were 
managed by entities other than the direct users of the services - music 
departments. The only other place that I know of where piano technicians 
report to an entity other than the Music faculty is Harvard - where they 
are, I believe, employees of Buildings and Grounds. 

With regard to the specific problems of "good" piano overuse - we have 
laid down the gauntlet to the Music faculty: if you allow overuse and 
abuse of concert and studio pianos, you will have to live with the 
consequences, because we can no longer be assured of the budget required 
to rebuild the pianos that you and your students trash by overuse due to 
the dire California budget situation. And we also won't honor requests 
for extra tunings on studio pianos - because they are padlocked, the 
faculty have keys and any overuse that they allow is their problem - not 
ours. Studio pianos are tuned every 4 weeks, and concert pianos before 
every concert whenever possible (it isn't possible on our days off or 
when the concert hall is overscheduled).  We have weekly access time to 
the concert piano for additional maintenance work. Each teaching studio 
has 2 pianos in it - and one of the two is designated as the primary 
teaching piano - and is supposed to be padlocked by the professor when 
not in use. The other is available for student practice during off 
hours. We have 3 piano professors. One locks his piano religiously (he 
pushed for the lock system - because he got tired of his piano being 
banged out of tune by practicing students). Another allows certain 
student on her schedule to practice after the last lesson - but asks 
that he/she lock the piano when they are done. She is always pushing to 
allow students to practice on "good" pianos and nobody has been able to 
get through her head the idea that pianos don't stay "good" very long if 
they are constantly used for practice. The third never locked a piano in 
his life... The results are predictable... Also we have - over the past 
3 years - rebuilt several grands and rearranged piano use so as to put 2 
grands (Steinway M's) in practice rooms for piano majors' exclusive use, 
and may be able to get a third one if the Director follows our advice. 
There are also several Steinway grands, one Mason & Hamlin BB, a Baldwin 
F and a Yamaha C-7 plus some lesser grands in classrooms and rehearsal 
studios available for practice use outside teaching and scheduled 
rehearsal hours - but the students all want to get their hands on the 
studio pianos.

Israel Stein