Good point Andrew. We purchased 77 new pianos when we moved into our new building in 1995, a mix of 11 Steinway Bs, 2 Ds, 3 Baldwin SFs, 15 each of Ls, 6000s, and 243s, and 16 Yamaha U3s. Nearly all the grands now need actions refurbished or at least complete regulation, and the 30 Baldwin uprights need the dreaded damper regulation, etc. This doesn't include the refurbishing/regulating/rebuilding work needed for the 45 or so older instruments we retained. Then add daily tuning needs to the mix. A lot of work for one person, especially when room scheduling is such the problem that it is. It was nice at first to have all new pianos, but all of a sudden, it seems like everything in the building needs a lot of work at the same time, and there's really not time to do much of it at all except tune. Like you say, I couldn't even get money for one rebuild a year as it was, and now with state budget shortfalls creating mid-year cuts where there was no place to cut, these new instruments appear to be headed for the same fate as our older ones. Pretty soon, we'll have an inventory of about 125 worn out pianos, where only seven short years ago that figure was only about 60-something worn out pianos. This is something to seriously consider. Jeff Andrew Remillard wrote: >In a message dated 12/4/01 1:46:12 PM Central Standard Time, >Richard.Brekne@grieg.uib.no writes: > ><< Still, the opportunity to get 70 fresh from the factory > instruments sounds hard to resist....especially if they > would mix in a bunch of Hamburgs. > >> > > >The long term problem with this is that they will wear out more or less all >at once. That is what has happened at NIU. Everybody needed the same work >all at once, and the budget doesn't even come close so the work get spread >out over a decade or so. > >Andrew Remillard Jeff Tanner Piano Technician School of Music University of South Carolina Columbia, SC 29208 (803)-777-4392 (phone)
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