Food on pianos and other forms of VANDALISM!

[Michael Wathen 556-9565]

I remember when they used to smoke in the practice rooms.  Now
that was a drag. :-))   We had this one professor, whom most were
afraid of, who chain smoked cigars and used the tuning pin area
as an ashtray.  None of the piano technicians would confront him
about it and since I was new on the staff I got the job of taking
care of his piano.  His name was Doc Houston.  I am giving his
name because there is at least one graduate on the LIST who went
to school here.  Anyway, I carried a vacuum cleaner with me,
cleaned, opened the windows, and tuned quickly.  It was truly
disgusting.  I swore that I would never service his piano again.
Several years later we cleaned the piano one last time as the
first step to rebuilding.  I never tuned his piano again and
neither did anyone else.  This place is large enough that if
someone wants to complain about something like that the powers
that be don't care to listen because this problem would be viewed
as petty compared to all the other problems that one could be
concerned about.  Nowadays its illegal to smoke anywhere in the
building.  You could even be arrested.

How do we deal with drinks?  I walk the halls several times a day
and if I see someone with a drink on the piano (our doors have a
small window) I barge in without knocking and give my 10 second
speech.  It consist of every four letter word in the book and
every personal insult I can think of. Then, I take out this
little gun I have.  Its rubber and when you squeeze it a little
Ping-Pong ball comes flying out.   Its called a Pop Gun.  I shoot
them.  Do this a few times and the word gets out.  People are
afraid that that door will come flying open.

The worst offenders are singers.  We have too Many of them here.
Just hope your school never gains notoriety for their voice
department. These guys never seem to have grown up.  They carry
these giant baby bottles with a straw sticking out of them (I
think its really a nipple).  They also demand that their
accompanist have the window open so they can get plenty of fresh
air.  But, I know that the real reason is two fold: first, they
are always air claustrophobic, always concerned with diseases of
the respiratory system and they always think they have them
(colds) second, these guys want everyone within earshot to hear
them hit their high notes.  It sort of reminds me of when I was a
freshman in college.  We would all point the speakers of our
stereos out the window and turn our rock music all the way up,
PARTY!

The worst part about this is that we are going through a big
expansion program here.  Every few months the call the piano
technicians in for a meeting with about ten architects and we go
over building plans.  We look at entrance ways, elevator
accesses, and storage facilities.  Then they ask us about our
other concerns.  We say: "windows in the practice rooms should
not open".  Then they have this same meeting with the voice
faculty and they say: "you need to be able to open the windows in
the practice rooms".  The first building in the expansion opens
up next week and guess who won, the High Notes.

Their reason for being able to open windows doesn't make sense.
I would think that with the air in Cincinnati being so bad they
would want the windows closed least they find phlegm on their
vocal chords.

Next, I hate the brass players and the clarinetist because they
spit on the floor and they hoard the rooms with grands in them
because they need a table to open their cases on.  I told the
planners that they should look in to the possibility of
purchasing old grand rims and lids.  These would require much
less maintenance than a real live piano but would still keep up
the appearances.

Michael Wathen
College-Conservatory of Music
University of Cincinnati