Piano Usage

[Barb Richmond]

On Thu, 7 Dec 1995, Joseph Vitti wrote:

> The pianos in our Recital Hall (two very fine Steinway Ds ) are being played to
> death. The pianos are only 2 years old. I have never been able to get the
> piano faculty to agree to a usage control plan. The students here are mostly
> grad MM and DMA. All very fine players, they tend to play the numbers game.
> Piano usage tends to favor one piano exclusively until it sounds beat and then
> go to the other instrument.
>

Perhaps the way to get the faculty to agree that a usage control plan is
needed would be to reserve (for yourself) a large number of hours *every*
week in your concert hall for piano maintenance.  That way the pianos get
all the attention they need and people can't play them while you're working
on them.  At IWU, we lock our pianos on stage *and* have a regular weekly
maintenance time--not just tuning.  *Then*, when you are spending so much
time in the concert hall and people complain that you aren't getting
anything else done (but, wow, the concert pianos sound great!), you show
them the documentation of how you've spent your time and write a
proposal/justification for creating another position.  My experience has
been that impassioned pleas don't work, just give'm the facts (how many
hours, how many pianos, what type of work.)

Barbara Richmond (Just the facts, mam.)
8 days of employment left at
Illinois Wesleyan University
Bloomington, Illinois