I¹m wondering what sorts of pianos other schools have in teaching studios for theory/comp, flute, trombone, choir director, and, particularly, voice. Are they verticals or grands? How frequently tuned? Better or worse shape than practice rooms? When I came on board here a few months ago, I removed grands from all teaching studios except piano and voice. It just seemed like a misallocation of limited assets to me, since we didn¹t have any playable grands in practice rooms (3 Webers with lyres that had come apart, on the ground). The new chairman (an insider) agreed. Now we have 12, including 6 Baldwin Rs and Ls and 2 Steinways, in various states of (dis)repair. None of them is great. But at least I can get to them for major reconditioning. The faculty, once they got over the blow to their egos, are much happier with vertical pianos that are in better condition and better tune, and that take less space in their studios. And students are happier as well. We currently have studio uprights in 4 classrooms. Again, I removed 1 very old Steinway S to a practice room for reconditioning for use by piano majors. It seemed like a waste to have it sitting in a classroom, never really played except for ear training. This has dramatically changed the face of things at the school, obviously. I¹m just curious to see if I¹m in line with others¹ thinking about asset allocation, since I¹m a pianist myself and rather sensitive to providing students with some ³real² instruments. Have I gone overboard? :) -- Paul Milesi, RPT Staff Piano Technician Howard University Department of Music College of Arts and Sciences, Division of Fine Arts 2455 Sixth Street NW Washington, DC 20059 University: (202) 806-4565 Home: (202) 667-3136 Cell: (202) 246-3136 E-mail: paul at pmpiano.com Website: http://www.pmpiano.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20091208/12f0c388/attachment.htm>
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