1. Taking a long view, educating the next generation of piano buyers, many of them now college students, would help resolve some dealer-technician-customer-relation issues. Having realistic expectations and knowing how to express them are matters that can be taught to student pianists by CAUT members, given the opportunity. How many of you regularly teach classes on piano design and technology to college piano majors? It seems to me that of all instrumentalists, pianists are least informed about their instrument--its history, how it works, how to maintain it. This is partly due to the common attitude (unfortunately shared by many teachers) that pianos of a given size are practically interchangable rather than individually prized the way fine oboes, horns, or violins are. If piano students brought their own pianos to campus the way many collegiate instrumentalists do, they'd learn to be more demanding of quality and proper maintenance. Since this isn't possible, next best is to instruct piano students about instrument construction and care, as is normal for organ majors. College techs and piano teachers can work together to make this happen, especially with local dealer support, to everyone's benefit in the long run. "A well-educated consumer is our best customer." 2. The modern notion of all-purpose pianos bears on the matter of more or less efficient damping. Damping and articulation are aesthetic issues intimately related to musical style. It's been observed that Viennese-type classical-era pianos aimed for very clear articulation throughout the compass at all dynamic levels, as demanded by their repertoire, while contemporary English pianos intentionally damped less efficiently (dampers were ordinarily omitted in the extreme treble) so that some note overhang was audible, as was evidently preferred by proto-Romantic British composers and audiences. The Mozartean ideal of clarity lost out during the 19th century and today we expect a good, resonant piano to handle any repertoire successfully. But a standardized approach doesn't do justice to style-conscious players, who should be able to suit the piano to the kind of music they most often play. This kind of sensitivity ought to be learned at the college level if not before, and it wouldn't hurt for techs to discuss such preferences before imposing an a priori uniform standard of damping. My point is simply that CAUT techs should be teachers too. Laurence Libin Editor-in-Chief Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments Oxford University Press lelibin at optonline.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20091127/3ae9069c/attachment.htm>
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