Columnist Scott Dickensheets: Thoughts on baby grands and baby steps

SCOTT DICKENSHEETS' column appears Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach him at [email protected] or 259-4082.

SPRING, AND a young columnist's fancy turns to thoughts of ... well, who can manage fancy thoughts in spring -- the day unfolding outside my window is far too distracting. Here, then, some miscellaneous tidbittery:

*It's striking how much goes on in the world that we don't know about. Somewhere, for instance, there is a room filled with Steinway baby grand pianos, surrounded by many rooms and hallways crammed with more pianos of every type and species.

I have, in fact, been in that room. It's across the hall from the office of UNLV music Professor James Stivers. It was like being in a roomful of show dogs, those sleek, pedigreed instruments poised and ready to perform. Normally I'm not much of a piano man, but the sight of all this massed ivory dispelled my usual keyboredom. What's going on?

Every year, it seems, the Yamaha piano people lend UNLV's music department a batch of brand new pianos. Just sends 'em over, free! After a year, Yamaha sells them, using the music department as a sales floor. Then they do it all over again. New pianos every year! Total cost to UNLV: nothing, according to Stivers.

"It's really a convergence of needs and wants," Stivers said. "We need pianos, and Yamaha wants to sell pianos."

This year, Yamaha lent UNLV 17 instruments (the company brings in additional dozens for the sale). Only 16 are up for grabs, however (the sale is today). "They gave us one!" he says. "Last year's sale went so well, they felt they'd turn around and help us out."

The loaner deal is important to UNLV's music program -- although they have 70 pianos in their inventory, they aren't getting any newer. Take the one in the recital hall downstairs from Stivers' office; it gets used all the time. "A conservative estimate: 60 performances, plus innumerable hours of rehearsal," he says.

Buying new pianos is usually out of the question. A typical budgetary outlay for such things is $15,000 or $20,000, Stivers says. "That won't even buy you one concert piano." Which means, of course, that he secretly fears the day Yamaha changes its mind.

*It's like being in a roomful of kids: I'm in a roomful of kids, watching my 5-year-old graduate from preschool, wondering, as parents are wont to do at such moments, about his future.

Generally, it looks good: He's revved up to face the delights and terrors of kindergarten. He's bright and curious, already posing the sorts of tough childhood questions best answered with a firm "Go ask your mom." He's canny, too. "Will you be sad if I can't make it to your graduation?" I asked him. "I'll be really happy if you are there," he said, with a grasp of the indirect nonanswer a Clinton spin doctor would envy.

Still, it's striking how much goes on in the world that we don't know about and can't prepare for. Does he understand that someday he might be shot by a classmate? Does he know that police in Huntington Beach, Calif., discovered a man with a videocam hidden inside a hollowed-out radio, the better to tape beach-goers' rear ends? Should I tell him that Electric Light Orchestra is still together and getting $27 a ticket? I want to protect him from frightening knowledge, after all.

Oh well, there'll be time for that later. There are cookies and punch in the back of the room.

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