To quote DP: When students bring up the idea of being able to practice on the concert grand I ask them if there’s a practice room piano that they would choose for their recital. Then I say, if you all practice on the concert piano it will become another practice piano in the same condition as the ones you now use. I can’t keep the practice room pianos in concert ready condition, and certainly can’t keep the concert grand in that condition if they are beating it 24/7. David Ilvedson, RPT Pacifica, CA 94044 ----- Original message ---------------------------------------- From: "Graves, Tony J." <tjgraves at bsu.edu> To: caut at ptg.org Received: 12/21/2009 5:33:41 PM Subject: Re: [CAUT] Piano juries on concert instruments >We have piano juries on our concert grand too and once those are done other areas >have juries in there also. There are also 4 piano studio classes for 2 hrs each week >of the semester and a few of the strings have studio classes too each which I'm sure >have piano accompanists on occasion. Plus the dress rehearsals and recitals. One >of the piano faculty last year made a comment that the piano wasn't up to concert >standards. The same faculty member who lets students practice when he's not >teaching made a comment that his studio piano wasn't up to teaching standards. I >think you can guess what I said in a polite way to each comment. >Tony Graves >Piano Technician >Ball State University >Muncie, IN >________________________________________ >From: Israel Stein [custos3 at comcast.net] >Sent: Monday, December 21, 2009 4:37 PM >To: CAUT at ptg.org >Subject: [CAUT] Piano juries on concert instruments >Hello all, >Well, the fecal matter has hit the air recirculation device here at ole SFSU. It seems >that a couple of the piano professors have managed to prevail upon the Director (of >the School of Music and Dance) to hold piano juries in the concert hall (two days, all >day). Of course there was a Senior piano recital scheduled on each one of those >evenings, and we (the piano techs) pointed to the Director that it probably would >not be a good idea for the juries to be played on the instrument both chose to >perform on - our Hamburg Steinway D - especially since there would not be time to >even tune the piano for the recitals (never mind to reverse the voicing havoc of >such abuse). Being a reasonable fellow, the Director instructed the piano faculty to >use the other two Steinway Ds for their juries. >Today I found out that the two faculty members in question wrote a nasty e-mail to >the Dean (of the College of Creative Arts - of which the SMD is a component) >objecting to such scheduling of concerts that prevents their students from being >able to play their juries on the best available piano. They still haven't gotten the >message that using it in this way will make it the worst available piano in no time, >since its general overuse has gotten those hammers to the edge (I dread needling >them at this point) - and there's no budget for replacement or major upgrade work, >this being a California State University campus and the Governator getting ready to >short us a few more zillion dollars next budget year... >To her credit, the Dean's Admin. Asst. sent them a rather snippy reply essentially >telling them that they have no business holding juries in the concert hall in the first >place (she is a graduate of this program from the days when we apparently had a lot >smarter policies in place) and they can't have it both ways - get the prime concert >piano for juries and have it available for everyone who wants to perform on it. But I >suspect that we haven't heard the end of it. >The point of this story is to ask, what kind of policies regarding venues and >instruments for piano juries prevail elsewhere in CAUTdom? Is there any other place >that allows this sort of use (abuse?) of their prime stage instruments? Or any stage >instruments? >Thank you, >Happy holidays (this campus closes tomorrow until January 5), >Israel Stein
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