New Record Set?

I started this post back in the spring, and it has lingered, incomplete, forming a psychological blog block for me for months. Today, I will finally finish and publish it so I can get back to a more consistent schedule of blogging about new stuff.

From roughly 9 to 10 o'clock this morning was an exciting time at Southeastern University. Not many people were in on the excitement, but Dr. Tindall and I got to coordinate and observe it. Two strong young men (not us) moved sixteen pianos between various rooms, several buildings, and on and off of a truck. I really don't know for sure, but it seems like it could be some sort of record. No doubt many more instruments have been unloaded into a warehouse in less time before, but the various placements and the territory covered seem to make our situation a little unique.

Also, it was a big day in that such an event hasn't happened in a number of years here. According to Dr. Tindall, the last time this many pianos were moved was when the department of music first started using the Spence building.

It has been a fun, if sometimes nervous, experience, and one full of learning. For those with an interest in the lives of college music professors, administration, or puzzles, the following might be a little intriguing.

In spite of occasional misperceptions in the practice rooms, schools generally do have plans for the maintenance and updating of their instruments and other equipment! As part of our plan, three new uprights came to our campus today. One goal of this current move was to be sure all the practice rooms that music majors regularly use would have either a grand, or an upright of the most recent generation. There appear to be three generations of uprights on our campus. There are some good Yamahas that seem to be no older than ten years, and maybe only five years or so. Then there are the middle-aged pianos which are still pretty good but are showing signs of years of numerous hours of daily use. And there are the really old uprights that need to go.

So part of the puzzle is getting the old pianos out (and earning some credit for future purchases with the company that took them) and then relocating the middle-aged pianos in a way that makes good sense. Several of these went to our modular classrooms. This provided some new rehearsal space that is available to all students, not just music majors, and it allowed us to get a better piano into a room that is used for aural theory classes.

One of the middle-aged pianos that was moved came from a room that also had a grand in it. We swapped a newer generation upright into there so that we could maintain one practice room with two pianos. We already had two grands in the piano lab which can be used for two-piano rehearsals as well.

An old grand that wasn't ideal for lots of piano major practice was discovered to be a pretty good instrument, though, and we moved it into a room that had housed a not-so-hot upright. That room may become available for some choral sectionals, and a grand could be better for that than an upright.

In addition, one little old grand that is more of a desk than a piano at this point was removed from a classroom and replaced by an okay upright. That particular grand was rather old and it seems that its designers had made a bunch of alterations to the ways pianos are usually designed, all of which made that particular instrument worse!

Postscript:

Since I wrote the above, a couple more new pianos arrived requiring more re-arranging, plus, the old grand that was pretty good was going to require too much rebuilding, so it has been replaced with an upright.

In addition, we switched the piano in the chapel with one from the piano lab. The old chapel piano was slightly bigger, but the piano lab piano is more brilliant, and that is important for playing in the chapel's acoustic. Figuring out if that move would work gave me an idea for a future post: Tools of the Piano Professor's Trade. In this case, it's a tape measure. I wouldn't have imagined such an item would be part of my profession when I was studying in conservatory. But knowing the precise sizes of pianos for negotatiating spaces during moves, and determining the comparative sizes of instruments that are not in the same room are sometimes essentials of the job!

After the last series of moves, I put together my own inventory of serial numbers and piano conditions which I will update yearly. That data can be used in figuring out future plans.

Very important: the company that did all of this moving was superb. The men working tirelessly, quickly, carefully, and with a very good spirit. A super heart-felt thank you to Piano Distributors.

Da Capo Concert and Masterclass

Over the weekend, I played a concert and taught a masterclass in Richmond, sponsored by the Da Capo Institute.

As I turned 36 a week earlier and I was also on spring break, the occasion proved to be a good time for reflection on my musical life.

Right before the concert, I had a feeling I'd never had before, and that was that having to play from memory is somehow undignified - as if art music required some sort of parlor trick.

After performing, I realized that I am more comfortable performing James M. Guthrie's Intermezzo and Fugue than Schumann's Papillons. From a techical standpoint, the Guthrie is a lot harder to play. But it fits me better tempermentally, or at least my current way of playing it does.

That evening, I had a good long talk with my good friend and musical collaborator, Jeff Prillaman. We shared our autobiographies as performers. Out of that came at least two solid bits of pianistic wisdom for me to remember:

Different works as well as different eras in one's life require different performance approaches. When I was a lot younger, I used a method acting approach to most of what I played. Then I came to trust the music more. Now I am trusting the music and my talent. Ultimately, I would do well to keep my music-making focused on my theme of integration - particularly the integration of my art and faith. I believe there are many ways in which one might make music so as to honor God - and I ought to pursue them more intentionally .

The other point also deals with difference and that is that different pianos can be radically different and one can't do everything one wants to with a piece on every piano. This ought to be taken into consideration when one evaluates one's performance goals and efforts.