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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I am kind of a lurker on the list and don't
contribute much, but this is something I don't see talked about as much as I see
the need to talk about it. I tune for a large school district in Kansas,
not one music teacher was hired this year that can play the piano. When I
started 25 years ago there would be 4 pianos in elementary buildings, and
Jr. Highs, now there is generally just one used only occasionally.
Jr. Hi.'s are recording accompaniments and using them in class and hiring
someone to play for programs. The kindergarten pianos are long gone, I
believe there are 36 elementaries and not one kindergarten teacher has a piano,
very few band or orchestra rooms have a piano and the general music teacher
doesn't use theirs. Churches are a lot the same way, used to tune in
classrooms, fellowship halls, choir rooms and sanctuaries. Now it is
usually just the sanctuary and sometimes not that. I think there has been
a shift in the number of people sticking with the piano, 25 years ago and 50
year old woman could play, in school or church wherever, they are now gone and
the 22 year old replacing them has grown up with computers and keyboards.
Piano teachers are going more and more to the keyboard and group teaching.
10 kids at a time on $200 keyboards, 10 times the money, parents get in cheap
with small keyboards, kids quit because we have no imagination to keep them
going. It is the Wal-Martization of piano lessons, very cheap, quick and
easy, in-out chuck the keyboard and move on to the next whim. I am just
seeing fewer and fewer places for the piano, because fewer and fewer are playing
the piano. KMEA has debated dropping accompaniments for solo work because
of the lack of piano players, we won't work with kids to get them to play and
motivate them, we are working for performance and we like to have half of it in
the can. I also do 2 universities, small private schools, the computer lab
is crammed but practice rooms are plentiful!</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Phil</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>