Caut help??

[S. Brady]

On Tue, 12 Mar 1996 A440A@aol.com wrote:

>           The Dean has asked me to vet the proposal, and see if there are any
> "red flags".  I have looked at it, and it seems almost too good to be true.
>  A dealer in Virginia is loaning a college $320,000 (list price) worth of
> Yamaha pianos, and is giving them some cash also.  Tuning, regulation, and
> voicing is the schools responsibiltiy.
>           Am I missing something here, or is it this easy to have a school
> full of new pianos?  Is there a down side that this obtuse technician is
> overlooking??

> Thanks,
> Ed Foote

      Ed,
      I would second Newton Hunt's comments; I think he has pretty well
covered the situation. I would add, from our experience, that there may
be an aggravation factor. Last September, we were supposed to have 22 new
Yamahas delivered 2 or 3 weeks before classes started. Instead, they
began arriving about a month *after* classes started. Now, six months
later, we still haven't received the last piano, which was promised to a
faculty member who has been making do with a PSO in the meantime. My
recommendation is that you don't put the loaner pianos in faculty
studios, or even in classrooms if you can avoid it. I think our basic
mistake here was to let them sell the pianos in June and not replace them
till September. Better to have the pianos replaced at the time of the sale.

Good luck,


Steve Brady, RPT        "Chaos is the law of nature; order is the
University of Washington      dream of man."    --Henry Adams
sbrady@u.washington.edu