I'm hopeful that the attitude of "doing whatever they please" can be changed with open dialogue and education of the pianists by the technician as to why, for example, thumbtacks in hammers is a bad idea. I've had a few problems here with prepared pianos that weren't done maliciously, but just with lack of education. Pianists can't read technician's minds. I'd guess in response to asking "What were you thinking?" they'd say they were just doing what Stravinsky would've wanted! We've got to be educators to such eager pianists... Cassie Van Gelder Resident Piano Technician Interlochen Center for the Arts 231.276.7808 -----Original Message----- From: John Minor [mailto:jminor@uiuc.edu] Sent: Wednesday, October 06, 2004 11:55 AM To: caut Subject: [CAUT] Thumbtacks in hammers! 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
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