<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2900.2722" name=GENERATOR></HEAD> <BODY id=role_body style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: #000000; FONT-FAMILY: = Arial" bottomMargin=7 leftMargin=7 topMargin=7 rightMargin=7><FONT id=rol= e_document face=Arial color=#000000 size=2> <DIV> <DIV>In a message dated 8/15/2005 9:32:37 A.M. US Eastern Standard Time, atodd@uh.edu writes:</DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid"><= FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000 size= =2>Does anyone have any current information on the Yamaha loan program?<BR>I remem= ber people saying in years past that they'd had a few problems.<BR>Especially = with the pianos arriving on time.</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV> <DIV></DIV> <DIV>I tune for two colleges, well one university and one college, involved = in the Yamaha program and as far as I can tell it is almost exclusively the dea= ler in question that determines the delivery schedule. Sometimes there are complications in communication between Yamaha and the dealer that delay thin= gs a bit, but the times that pianos are delivered late (to the dealer and, theref= ore, to the college), are usually the times that the dealer got the order in at t= he last minute. </DIV> <DIV>As far as I can tell, the pianos arrive in much better tune and regulat= ion than the Baldwin's in the previous loan program. It seems like I always had = to raise pitch and deal with sticky keys, etc. with the Baldwin's but I ra= rely have problems with the Yamaha's. I don't have a good explanation for that.</= DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>John Stroup</DIV> <DIV>South Bend, Ind.</DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>