Hi Don, Very, very sorry to hear of this. I know it must be discouraging, having worked so hard to maintain and improve all those instruments. Best of luck in the recovery phase! But your ³story² is being put to good use: I started here at Howard last Spring. We are of course in an urban location, downtown Washington, DC. Anyway, by the end of the semester in April, the new chairman was so impressed/pleased with the work I was doing that he purchased used card key/keypad lock units for all the piano practice room doors, and hired a security guard for the main entry door. No system works perfectly, but it¹s cut down on most of the unauthorized folks who were using the facilities, and is changing the culture among students, who begin to take some pride in ³their² practice rooms. They know that all entries to a room are recorded in the computer system and can easily be retrieved, so if they open a door for someone else, they are held liable. One student has already had practice privileges put on a probation period ‹ much to his surprise! I forwarded most of your email, including the TV reporting link, to my chairman and all the piano faculty (for starters). Your experience has dispelled any doubt in their minds about whether it was worth the expense and trouble of purchasing and installing the locks, including working to get money from deans; listening to student complaints; administrative time; lock installation, maintenance & repair, etc. So thank you for sharing. I¹m sure there are many of us who are making the best use possible of this negative event. Sincerely, Paul -- Paul Milesi, RPT Staff Piano Technician Howard University Department of Music College of Arts and Sciences, Division of Fine Arts 2455 Sixth Street NW Washington, DC 20059 University: (202) 806-4565 Home: (202) 667-3136 Cell: (202) 246-3136 E-mail: paul at pmpiano.com Website: http://www.pmpiano.com From: Donald McKechnie <dmckech at ithaca.edu> Reply-To: <caut at ptg.org> Date: Wed, 16 Dec 2009 09:41:07 -0500 To: <caut at ptg.org> Subject: [CAUT] vandalism All, On behalf of the IC Music School I want to thank everyone for their concerns, well-wishes and offers for assistance after the vandalism in our practice rooms. While still serious, the damage was not as extensive as was reported Sunday by the college, media and the rumor mill. It would have helped in that regard if they had just waited until I had the chance to actually touch the pianos. That was not until after 4 pm. Later in the evening Michelle and I drove down the hill to the Ale House, had a couple of burgers, a couple of brews and watched the Eagle and the Giants duke it out. :-) Here is a link you can try to see a video from a Syracuse TV station. Some inaccuracies but at least the old Steinway A sounds pretty good. (As Michelle breaths a sigh of relief :-) http://www.9wsyr.com/mediacenter/local.aspx?videoId=274095@wixt.dayport.com& navCatId=5 <http://www.9wsyr.com/mediacenter/local.aspx?videoId=274095@wixt.dayport.com &navCatId=5> About 2/3rds of the pianos were vandalized. Most of the damage was done to the case parts and relatively little interior damage. Many were quick repairs accomplished on Sunday. We have about 28 pianos remaining to be repaired and many hours of work ahead but all the pianos will be ready for next semester. It is a shame but evidence suggests this was done by a music student/s. We are hoping this will lead to more secure environment for the inventory and our students. I have been advocating for many years that at the very least, the grand practice rooms must be locked. We'll see but my longstanding efforts in that regard might finally come to fruition. The response from around the country has been amazing and overwhelming. We have received many offers for assistance, use of pianos and local facilities. Everyone here is sincerely grateful. Unfortunate but some times it takes an incident like this to fully appreciate all the great students we have in our schools. At times it seems like they just don't care but that simply is the not case for the majority. There was a large gathering outside the building Sunday evening for a candlelight vigil. The appreciation that was expressed for the work we do was very heartwarming. Regards, Don Donald McKechnie Piano Technician Ithaca College dmckech at ithaca.edu 607.274.3908 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20091218/807563fe/attachment.htm>
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