If we had sufficient budget, I would replace hammers on practice room grands for piano majors every three to five years. That said, we have hammers still in service that are ten years old (isn't that about fifty in "dog years"?)
We have an embarrassingly low ratio of piano major practice rooms to piano majors, what I only hope is the worst ratio of anyone on this list. There are ten classical piano majors, another ten jazz piano majors, and about another ten "performer/composers" for whom piano is their primary instrument. Although classrooms and the piano teaching studio are made available to all of these folks whenever they are available, there are a measly THREE piano major practice rooms. Plus, our practice room are so small that they cannot accommodate anything larger than a 5' 8". (We have Yamahas.)
The Colburn School here in Los Angeles (gold standard of all things piano-related) on the other hand, has one practice room for each piano major. The instruments in those rooms range from seven to nine foot models of Yamaha, Kawai, Steinway and Fazioli pianos. As the Beach Boys once commented (on this very subject, if I am not mistaken), "Wouldn't it be nice…"
Alan
------------------------------
Alan Eder, RPT
Herb Alpert School of Music
California Institute of the Arts
Valencia, CA
661.904.6483
------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 10-23-2018 21:14
From: Kevin Fortenberry
Subject: Practice grand hammer life
Paul, this is a tough one. We have 5 grand pianos that are dedicated to our piano majors. All in individual locked rooms. I am not sure how many piano majors we have but it is probably closer to 15. Perhaps others will have more to offer as far as typical ratios.
Our hardest played practice grands seem to seem to get about 7 to 10 years out of a good set of hammers. I have not been able to track this carefully because when I arrived in '09 we had 2 Yamaha G2s that were just "SHOT" including hammers. We shuffled some around & then within a couple of years we were able to purchase a new Yam C1 & then a C2. Then we moved a Mason with like new Renners on it from upstairs-it is still doing really well, and then an older Steinway S which already had half worn-out hammers. It is our weakest link & needs to be taken out of service ASAP.
And then our 5th one is a new Steinway Model O, upstairs in the TA office/practice room.
Looks like I may not be much help my friend!
------------------------------
[Kevin] [Fortenberry] [RPT]
[Staff Techician]
[Texas Tech Univ]
[Lubbock] [TX]
[8067783962]
Original Message:
Sent: 10-23-2018 09:59
From: Paul Williams
Subject: Practice grand hammer life
Hi All,
I'm wondering how long do your practice grand hammers last? Also, how many piano majors v. practice grands do you have? We have 16 grands and 60+ majors in the piano dept.
------------------------------
Paul T. Williams RPT
Director of Piano Services
School of Music
813 Assembly St
University of South Carolina
Columbia, SC 29208
pwilliams@mozart.sc.edu
------------------------------