<HTML>In a message dated 3/3/02 2:01:14 PM Central Standard Time, owner-pianotech-digest@ptg.org writes: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2002 13:38:37 EST From: Bdshull@AOL.COM Subject: Lease piano issues (was Symphony piano sale) List, As one who has, with great excitement and expectation, performed hundreds of tunings on lease pianos at universities, I want to ask those of you who have been involved with the lease programs: >From your experience: 1.  Do these new, pitch-unstable pianos get enough tunings to be useful for music education? 2.  Does the lease sale happen at a time that is disruptive to the school schedule, rehearsals, jury preparation, etc., or does it happen before or after an academic period? 3.  Does the school have control of the coming and going of these pianos so that they do not get moved or sold out from under you at any time, further complicating the attempt to have tuning-stable pianos for the year? 4.  Have you, your school or the local dealer done anything to successfully resolve these problems, that you can share with us? My experience is that the lease pianos are not really musically useful most of the time.  Typical new piano tuning issues involve rapid string stretch as well as dramatic, weather-influenced soundboard rise and fall.  Add to this typical heavy practicing, and these pianos are year-round tuning disasters.  As co-chair of the CAUT committee for contract issues, I am trying to address these issues and incorporate solutions into our new Guidelines document which will be up for approval at the Institute in Chicago.  I think we on the Pianotech list who do contract work for universities have a huge challenge.  The lease program isn't going away, so I am interested in what you have done to successfully address the problems we encounter with lease pianos. La Sierra University Co-Chair, College and University Technicians Committee, PTG In a message dated 3/2/02 11:03:07 AM Pacific Standard Time, JStan40@AOL.COM writes:  <<SNIP>> </BLOCKQUOTE> Bill, Since I'm involved in an arrangement at my institution where we have the use (free lease, if you will) of 8 pianos for the year, I'll comment strictly on our experience. 1.  The pianos are maintained by our own contracted tech.  While they are on the typical kind of tuning rotation as the rest of the inventory, they do get more frequent tunings in the first few months, at least.  And since one of the grands is used in a teaching studio, and the other grand is used by piano majors only, these are also tuned more frequently than practice room pianos.  They are, as a result, as stable as it is possible, given the fact that they are new. 2.  The store came to us for this arrangement, not the other way around, and we hammered out an agreement on the time of year that seemed to work for all of us.  We have a mid-October sale, and while we've had to work with them very carefully concerning move-in, move-out, and we DO have to switch rooms for a couple of classes (mine, notably!), we've been able to manage with very good cooperation and not too much upset. 3.  Yes, we do, and no, they do not attempt to get pianos out from under us......the relationship has been a very good one in terms of cooperation. 4.  See above--we went into this situation with our eyes wide open, knowing some of the problems that others have had.  The store, in turn, was more than willing to work out arrangements that would be mutually agreeable, and both parties have the ability to opt out if the arrangement becomes less than satisfactory.....but only at the end of the "lease" period. It CAN be done in such a way that it turns out to be beneficial, but the guidelines have to be spelled out, and a relationship with the dealer is essential (Roger will be glad to speak further to this point, I'm sure).  In return for the sale using our facility (WE do not advertise it, the store does, it is only HELD at the college--the advertising is clear on that point), we get the use of the following Yamaha pianos: A C3 grand A GH2 (I think......) grand 2 U-1 uprights (one with Diskclavier installed) 4 P22s in various finishes, used in vocal studios and classrooms. For us it seems to work reasonably well--the store works with us, their movers are efficient, polite and well known to us, and we benefit in terms of the use of good instruments, which we maintain (warranty issues aside, of course).  This one is not the abject horror story that some sales have become........in no small part because neither party wanted that to happen. Regards, Stan Ryberg Barrington IL mailto:jstan40@aol.com</HTML>