Paul: Here each piano teacher has 2 Steinway Bs except for the artist in residence who has a Steinway D and a redesigned D. All of those are in pretty good shape and are tuned at least 4 times a year. One other artist in residence in piano (not here a lot) has a Steinway L & an upright. All voice faculty have a grand of some kind (3 with Steinway Bs, 1 Boston and 1 Baldwin L) and are tuned at least 3 times a year. The 10 piano major rooms have 5 Ms, 4 Ls and a B and these are usually tuned about every 6 weeks.. All other instrument teachers, theory, history etc. have either Walter studios or Baldwin 243s except for the violin studio that has a Mason & Hamlin CC. We have 4 grands in classrooms the rest have uprights. Choral Hall and Band Hall each have Bs in reasonable shape. dave David M. Porritt, RPT dporritt at smu.edu From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Paul Milesi Sent: Tuesday, December 08, 2009 11:33 AM To: PTG CAUT List Subject: [CAUT] What Types of Pianos in Non-Piano Teaching Studios and Classrooms? I'm 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 didn't 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. I'm just curious to see if I'm in line with others' thinking about asset allocation, since I'm a pianist myself and rather sensitive to providing students with some "real" 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/20091208/38e01f47/attachment.htm>
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