Jim, list: << this goes on at all too many of these Armory/University type sales and is not a unique event.....would that we could do something to keep this from happening but................. >> But...and that is probably as far as we will be able to take it, but FWIW....(Ron saw this coming and tried to divert me...) My position on this is that we can begin (or continue) to work away at the universities' piano service programs and inventory condition, without forgetting the reason for the development of these sales. Piano techs - including contract college techs - are in a position to persistently and systematically work to educate the music department heads as to what their best options are. All schools should be aware of the PTG CAUT "Guidelines for Effective Institutional Maintenance" (with revisions incorporating lease pianos to be approved in Chicago in 2002) and how their programs come out in the analysis - they need to know there are standards, and how they meet the standards as these standards apply to the music department's own goals. That means the one way or another we need to crunch the workload formula numbers for each of our colleges and be fully conversant with their situations. Mac and PC downloadable versions of both the current and proposed (new) workload formulas in spreadsheet form are obtained at http://www.mursuky.edu/caut.php/guidlines_pg.htm I speculate there is a correlation between the condition of college piano inventories and future/long-term piano sales. For the short haul the piano sales rake in the bucks, but for the long haul students regularly play badly out-of-tune pianos which do not begin to represent good tone and pitch - this may not help long term piano sales. College pianos generally should reinforce the inspiration and artistic discovery which attracted the music student. That is good music education AND good long term retail strategy. Lease pianos receiving 2 or 3 tunings in the year cannot begin to accomplish this. If the retail trade would commit to supporting additional tuning work on the new lease pianos (I know of one dealer who did this), the new pianos could have 6-8 tunings in the year they sit in practice rooms, studios and classrooms. Unfortunately this is not likely. How many schools tune their lease pianos 4 times in the first 3 months? That is what they usually need, regardless of use. And a dealer tuning subsidy would just result in the school re-allocating the budget, probably. That does not address the problem of the 'aura' which a university sale has, that contributes to that special feeling of betrayal which affects many would-be buyers. We piano technicians hear from college piano sale customers who leave these events feeling duped. The letters they received from the department heads convinced them that this sale was different, and they found out it was worse - they had only a few hours to make up their minds, if that - and the piano inventory was no different than the dealer's showroom floor. Not all leave this way, but mostly because they knew better to begin with. And some actually do leave having purchased the piano of their dreams, in an epiphany. (Of course, the responsibility is still on the consumer to do their homework - it is their decision.) With this in mind, consider that without active efforts on our part to raise the bar in college piano service, the next step is for the dealer to "become" piano service at the college. It's beginning to happen. Why not? The dealer supplies half the pianos in the university's inventory, has a fleet ot top-flight technicians ready to work (right?) and can promise more bang for the buck - more and cheaper tunings (which is all the school needs if all it has are lease pianos!). Obviously the lay person wouldn't know the difference - who does the lay person call to get piano service? The local retail affiliate of a major piano brand - the dealer. And the dealer may be more adept at perceiving the business needs of the school, and talking the language of the financial analyst - or at least appearing to. [The administrator might be more comfortable playing golf with the dealer too, especially when a few perks come along - not in the more obvious, and possibly more questionable ways, but in the form of opportunity to make private purchases at or below cost (and we can argue this up and down, but it happens and will continue to happen; it ranges from being innocuous to mildly illegal, if the school is not private).] We all depend on the work of the retail trade to provide our income - that is obviously how the pianos get sold. But it wouldn't threaten our livelihoods if all of us who do any kind of college work (most of us are on part-time contract, not employed) get up to speed on institutional piano service standards and begin to get the word out. Maybe the lease piano sale has saved the piano from obsoletion. Maybe we need to swallow our moral pride (gulp) and thank the college sales folks for keeping the piano alive and our jobs intact - and just go on tuning, doing our part to satisfy the retail customers from these special events. But if upgrading the quality of service and inventory contributes to increased sales in the long haul we all will have gained. Bill Shull, RPT CAUT Contract Committee Co-Chair
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