<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div>On Jul 3, 2008, at 6:56 AM, tony wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="word-spacing: 0px; font: normal normal normal 15px/normal Arial; text-transform: none; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-indent: 0px; white-space: normal; letter-spacing: normal; border-collapse: separate; orphans: 2; widows: 2; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; ">I asked a simple question!</span></div><div type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="word-spacing: 0px; font: normal normal normal 15px/normal Arial; text-transform: none; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-indent: 0px; white-space: normal; letter-spacing: normal; border-collapse: separate; orphans: 2; widows: 2; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "></span> </div><div type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="word-spacing: 0px; font: normal normal normal 15px/normal Arial; text-transform: none; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-indent: 0px; white-space: normal; letter-spacing: normal; border-collapse: separate; orphans: 2; widows: 2; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; ">What would you do if you were asked to compromise.</span></div></span></blockquote></div><div><br></div>Hi Tony,<div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Actually that is an entirely different question from what you stated before, though I believe I have already answered it: If I needed to compromise and purchase lower quality (below standard?) instruments, I would place them not in practice rooms, but in what I consider to be less critical areas, areas I named in previous posts. I consider practice rooms very critical. Many institutions seem to think they can get by neglecting their practice rooms. I think they are deluded. Students need the best pianos in the best condition possible in order to make progress, whatever the budget will allow. The musicology prof and the band director don't need that quality or condition for their purposes.</div><div><br></div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>I am a little puzzled by your approach to this list. It is apparent to me and to others that you are a representative of a manufacturer, wanting to place its pianos in institutions, and developing a program to do so that includes loaners and other factors. That is just fine, but why not say so directly? Why all this dancing around? I'm sure readers of this list would be interested to know that your secret manufacturer is initiating a program. Why keep it a secret?</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>I am also puzzled by your sales approach. I guess your "angle" is that an institution can save money by purchasing a lesser instrument (like the one you represent) and placing it in practice rooms, on the grounds that it will be "good enough" and that, furthermore, it will require less tuning because it will be more stable. The latter part of this is quite simply a bunch of hooey. Maybe salesmen and manufacturers' reps believe that cheaper pianos don't need tuning as much because they are inherently more stable, but if so that is because they apparently talk only to one another and not to people who actually deal with pianos on a daily basis in institutional settings. I tell you very plainly based on well over 20 years of intense field experience that there is no, zero, relationship between piano price, perceived quality level, reputation, however you want to put it,  and tuning stability relative to humidity change (which is an enormous factor in institutional piano work). If there is any difference, it tends sometimes to be in favor of the more expensive brand, but that is a very minor consideration in the whole picture. Some of the worst pianos from the point of view of stability are quite nice otherwise, others are quite nasty otherwise. There is no predicting until you have experience with a particular model.</div><div><br></div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>If you represent an instrument that is capable of meeting the demands of an institution, why not present it as such? Let it compete on its merits. I am lucky in having a regular budget for piano replacement, so I oversee purchase of pianos on an annual basis or thereabouts. I personally have a very open mind about piano brands and manufacturers, and look at all that are offered. Some are junk, others are surprisingly good. Among recent surprisingly good instruments (at least on first impression, without seeing how they hold up over time) have been Brodmann, Perzina, and high end SMC products like Knabe (I haven't been offered many of the latter, unfortunately). I find that they compete fairly well against brands more common in institutions. If a salesman approached me trying to sell me one of these "surprisingly good" pianos on the basis of it being inferior but good enough, would I be impressed by his salesmanship? I don't think so. The price differential is obvious. The only question in my mind is whether or not it is of high enough quality. If it is, I may well buy it (depending on the competition). If not, I won't, regardless of price.</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>I return, though, to a point I made in my last post: piano service is where most institutions need an education, need a consultant. It doesn't matter whether they buy what is supposed to be the best on the market or the worst or somewhere in between if they don't have a competent tech staff with enough time to take care of them. There are a fair number of manufacturers making reasonably well designed and executed instruments. In competition over a period of years, the ones that are well prepped in the beginning (which includes a fair amount of lubrication with the right substance in the right application, tightening and aligning, regulation, troubleshooting, voicing, etc - generally a full day's work or more), and well-maintained thereafter, are the ones that will serve the institution well and develop a good reputation for the manufacturer. Far too often we see institutions throwing money away purchasing millions of dollars worth of inventory, and then treating it as if all that is needed is to order regular tuning. And this attitude seems to be reflected in your earliest posts, where your focus is on how much it is going to cost to tune the more expensive versus the less expensive one. Tuning is important, but equally if not more important is comprehensive service. The difference between institutions lies there far more than in the brand name on the fall boards.<br><div><div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">Regards,</div><div>Fred Sturm</div><div>University of New Mexico</div><div><a href="mailto:fssturm@unm.edu">fssturm@unm.edu</a></div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div></div></div><br><div></div></div></div></body></html>