Steinway school

[Mark Cramer]

Wonderful advice from Richard West, I couldn't agree more.

Another question may be; "who do you want administrating your inventory,
yourself, or Steinway & Sons?

The golden rule; "he who holds the gold makes the rules!"  :>)

Mark Cramer,
Brandon University


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-caut@ptg.org [mailto:owner-caut@ptg.org]On Behalf Of Richard
West
Sent: Friday, December 14, 2001 10:36 AM
To: College & University Technicians
Subject: Steinway school


Wim:

The question you have is this: Do I buy pianos now or later.  Since
you're new on the job, you may have a little more leverage now to get
everything you want if the faculty/administration is open to providing
the funds.  The problem is that you may not see another dime of piano
related funding for the next 10 to 20 years.

A better plan, I think is to have the administration commit to the same
amount of spending spread over 10 to 15 years.  If they're willing to
spend $1 million, I think a long term spending plan of $100,000/year for
10 years or $65,000 for 15 years is better.  The up side is that you are
creating an underlying funding philosophy that regular piano purchase
and replacement is the basis for keeping the inventory at a high level.
Also, you have more options, i.e., you could opt to send some of the
bettter instruments currently on inventory out for rebuilding and
improve your inventory in more creative ways at a cost savings.  If you
wanted to offer in-house rebuilding and hire an assistant, that might
work.  Buying new and rebuilding old can work together very well.  You
also have the option of buying different brands.  I think there's a case
to be made for having 2 or 3 brands of pianos at a university so that
students get a chance to play different brands of hopefullly high
quality instruments.  There's also the option of hybrid pianos;  many
instructors are finding pianos with PianoDisc or Disklaviers very useful
for instructional purposes.

The down side is that one administration may commit to long term
funding, but another may come on board and take all your funding away.
If you don't think the administration will fund for the long haul, get
all you can get right now.  You'll be able to keep those pianos in good
shape for probably as long as you'll be there.  The guy that follows you
will be the one stuck with a bunch of old pianos all of which were
bought at once and are wearing out at about the same time.

Are you overloaded with advice yet?

Richard West