Kawai's University program

[Newton Hunt]

The dealers need to make money on the installation of pianos for, usually, a
year, but some schools get a commission on any pianos sold.  We do not.

Do NOT dispose of all of your pianos.  It may happen that after a year or two
the dealer may wish to not participate any longer and you will be without
pianos.

Try to protect the instruments as much as possible.  It is difficult to sell
pianos that have deep scratches in the cases.

Get a contract that stipulates everything.

You may try to get the dealer to send a tuner to do the first tuning.  You
MUST have help just before the sale.  Our sale is after Xmas and before the
spring semester begins.

See if you can make some trades, some of your old junk for something new but
do not cripple yourself for the future.

I have troubvle with Kawais with lossening glue joints, loose tuning pins,
constant string breakage and soft finishes.  One year of use sould not show
up these problems but any longer term usage will.  One of the problems I have
found is that Kawai uses excessive tension in their scales which contributes
to string breakage and also their hammers are so hard that that accelerates
string breakage.  I have replaced most hammers with Ronson hammers and that
has been a great help!

Lots of luck.

      Newton
      nhunt@gandalf.rutgers.edu