[CAUT] Thumbtacks in hammers!

[John Minor]

Well, it finally happened. Every university technician fears
that one day the following will happen in their school:

A recently rebuilt Steinway B was used for a performance of
Stravinsky's RAGTIME. The piece calls for cymbalum so, in it's
place a piano had thumb tacks pushed into the hammer felt to
imitate the sound. This was for a NEW MUSIC performance here
at the University of Illinois.

I wrote a nice email to the performing arts center director
where the atrocity was committed and informed them the hammers
would need to be replaced at a cost of $400 for the parts.
Unfortunately, I failed to mention the 30 or so hours it could
take to bore and hang the new set!

The department directors spoke and the offenders were
supposedly "spoken to" about the matter. Personally I'd rather
have had the chance to talk to people face to face and ask,
"What were you thinking?" There seems to be an attitude of
"I'll do anything I darn well feel like doing" among many in
our music department. Is that an isolated attitude?


John Minor
University of Illinois