[CAUT] CAUT position announcements, CAUT Academy

[Fred Sturm]

On Aug 22, 2008, at 7:00 AM, Leslie Bartlett wrote:

> Just to be devil's adequate (some might wonder which of the words to  
> accent), the organist at the church where I serve grew up playing a  
> Lester Spinet.  She went on to do graduate work at Eastman.  A  
> former organist grew up something worst than a Lester and also did  
> fabulous work.  If a person wants music badly enough, they'll create  
> it in their heads while making horrible sounds on totally inadequate  
> POS's.  This is a strong argument for those who refuse to maintain  
> instruments to PTG standards.  I suspect there's a very hot place  
> which will freeze over before schools will listen carefully to the  
> best intended technicians, or for that matter consider maintaining  
> salaries as an important item in their budget.  If techs continue to  
> work for little, this part time tech who loves the little campus he  
> serves,  one can suspect things won't change much.
> JMHO
> les bartlett

Hi Les,
	I'll grant that people who are obsessed with becoming musicians will  
overcome a lot. I note that your examples both became successful  
organists, not pianists. Nothing against organists, but the piano  
requires a different approach, with a very complex neural/muscular/ 
auditory feedback leading to the ability to play musically with nuance  
(the organ only needs "push the right button" technique).
	For me, this has a personal side that reinforces my passion for  
promoting well-prepped and maintained pianos in music departments. I  
grew up on inadequate instruments. I remember very well an experience  
as a senior in college. I went with my piano teacher to a concert she  
was performing, to turn pages. It was on a brand new Bosendorfer in  
Indianapolis. She had me try out the instrument, and I was blown away.  
I could actually play passages with control at pianissimo. I could  
create diminuendo and crescendo evenly without effort. WOW! I  
attributed this to being a special, exotic, expensive instrument. Only  
many years later did I realize it was the prep work.
	I went on to get a masters degree in piano, again on totally  
inadequate instruments. When I completed the degree, I had what I came  
to realize was a dead end technique, partly because of tension arising  
from never being able to predict what sound would come out of the  
instrument. You can't develop a good, even, controlled technique  
unless you have a good, even piano to practice and perform on  
(regulation, voicing and conditioning). [Now, thirty years later, I  
finally have a pretty reasonable technique. I'm a pretty persistent  
cuss <G>.]
	Pianists definitely know the difference between a well-prepped piano  
and the opposite. If you can show them one, they will want it. One of  
our problems is that the assumption of many pianists is that you need  
to spend the money on "the quality instrument," that that is where the  
difference lies. We see a lot of departments investing millions on  
instruments, so they obviously see the value of good pianos to their  
programs. What we need to do is to make it clear that the care and  
skill that goes into the comprehensive maintenance of the pianos is  
probably the most important part of the picture.
	All right, I'm an idealistic dreamer.
Regards,
Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico
fssturm at unm.edu