2008 Woodie Awards
Put harmony back in the Hut
Simon Kelly
Issue date: 4/6/07 Section: Forum
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Unless you're Tom Waits or an experimental composer like John Cage, there are few bleaker prospects than sitting down to a piano that has fallen hopelessly out of tune. It clunks when you want it to roar, it chirps when you want it to chime, and before you know it, you find yourself moodily stalking off not having played a note of Bohemian Rhapsody.
This is why, as most musicians at Guilford are aware, that the majority of the pianos across campus offer little in the way of musical fulfillment, be it their location, their state of tuning, or some confounding combination. Of course, there is always the Dana collection, but that is generally exclusive to music majors and not terribly accessible even then. Not everyone that cares about pianos is a music major. So do we eliminate the keys at the obvious risk of security? No, too revolutionary. Wait, I have it - hire a piano tuner!
Pianos need to be made more accessible to all of the students of Guilford, so whether you are in the common room of Shore, or sitting in the Hut, the prospect of musical discovery is never far away.
Both locations mentioned have pianos, the problem is that one sounds like Sylvia Plath's angry ghost, while the other sounds like it fell off the chuck wagon that the first Quakers rode in on and nobody's bothered to tune it since. Both locations are also commonly used as hang out spots. Alas, people would sooner use those old clunkers for coasters or beer pong tables than gather around them for a good old-fashioned sing-along.
This painful truth bothered me so much that I went to Max Carter, whose office contains one of these sad musical specimens, looking for answers and perhaps a little solace. Unfortunately, he could offer me little more than this dispiriting back-story.
"The piano in the Hut was donated by Chelle Stinson, a graduate of Guilford in the early 90s," said Carter. "It was pretty old when we got it. We had tuned it each year for several years, and each time the tuner said that it wasn't much worth it - as it would quickly go out of tune, the innards were so worn."
This is why, as most musicians at Guilford are aware, that the majority of the pianos across campus offer little in the way of musical fulfillment, be it their location, their state of tuning, or some confounding combination. Of course, there is always the Dana collection, but that is generally exclusive to music majors and not terribly accessible even then. Not everyone that cares about pianos is a music major. So do we eliminate the keys at the obvious risk of security? No, too revolutionary. Wait, I have it - hire a piano tuner!
Pianos need to be made more accessible to all of the students of Guilford, so whether you are in the common room of Shore, or sitting in the Hut, the prospect of musical discovery is never far away.
Both locations mentioned have pianos, the problem is that one sounds like Sylvia Plath's angry ghost, while the other sounds like it fell off the chuck wagon that the first Quakers rode in on and nobody's bothered to tune it since. Both locations are also commonly used as hang out spots. Alas, people would sooner use those old clunkers for coasters or beer pong tables than gather around them for a good old-fashioned sing-along.
This painful truth bothered me so much that I went to Max Carter, whose office contains one of these sad musical specimens, looking for answers and perhaps a little solace. Unfortunately, he could offer me little more than this dispiriting back-story.
"The piano in the Hut was donated by Chelle Stinson, a graduate of Guilford in the early 90s," said Carter. "It was pretty old when we got it. We had tuned it each year for several years, and each time the tuner said that it wasn't much worth it - as it would quickly go out of tune, the innards were so worn."
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