Since the beginning of the Monsoon 2024 semester, the piano room has been experiencing several challenges including a lost Air Conditioning (AC) remote, a broken piano stick, poor ventilation and an inefficient booking system. The university offers only one piano for more than three thousand students, leaving piano enthusiasts frustrated.
These issues surfaced after the piano room was shifted from the Administrative Block to Academic Block-04 (AC-04) over the summer. Yaajushi Hulgundi (UG'26), the former piano room representative, said that the piano was moved along with the relocation of the entire Performing Arts department to accommodate the Centre for Entrepreneurship in the Administrative Block. Two more sources, on the condition of anonymity, have corroborated this link. The Centre, however, in private correspondence with The Edict, denies association with the move.*
After the shift, the AC remote in the piano room went missing. Controlling the room’s temperature is crucial to maintaining the quality of the piano. The unregulated heat may damage the piano otherwise, causing stiff keys in certain octaves. “It has not been replaced or found as yet. According to the administration, it is a very expensive remote,” says Professor Justin McCarthy, Director of Performing Arts.
Following the administration’s response, McCarthy had a “fan installed” and is hopeful that “with the onset of winter and by the time the hot weather comes again, we would have found some alternative solution” such as a screen-based system for operating the AC. The piano stick has been repaired and the stiff keys and tuning of the piano was also fixed in October.
Poor ventilation and lack of air-conditioning is another major concern for students. The piano room gets extremely hot during the summer months which may affect the quality of practice for a student using the room. In contrast, the old piano room was appreciated by senior students for its good ventilation, well-maintained infrastructure and rich acoustics. Uma Bakshi (ASP’25) lamented, “What ultimately ends up happening is that everyone who's really passionate about music in some way or form ends up taking the loss.”
Students often find the piano room dirty and littered. Mallika Gupta (UG’28), a Grade 8 pianist working on a piano diploma with the London College of Music, said, “I expected a neat space with a functioning piano and air conditioning and it was none of those…There’s always chips packets and soda cans lying around.”
She adds that the lack of practice time has hindered her progress, saying, “I would, ideally at home practice for 5-6 hours straight. [Now] I have only that one hour.” Hulgundi adds that representatives and students have been pressing to move the piano to a new room, but the lack of available space in the campus does not permit it.
The other piano on campus kept in the BlackBox has never been open to student practice. According to Professor McCarthy, the piano is reserved for concerts and recitals and hence cannot be open for everyday practice. He added that The BlackBox piano is not solely reserved for the PA department but is also open to students for recitals.
Some suggestions include upright digital pianos which can be played wearing headphones. This way, many can be placed in the same space. Professor McCarthy pointed out issues such as financing, lack of space, and lack of manpower for supervision that make implementing such solutions next to impossible.
Students also say that the booking system is inefficient, largely because of the demand-supply disparity the piano room is experiencing. Professor McCarthy assumes that the demand for the room has increased with the intake of the new undergraduate batch, but cannot gauge the exact demand as “no one amongst the students seems to be able to assemble a list of present piano users.”
Every Sunday at 10:00 pm, the piano representatives open access to the Google Calendar link and more than a hundred students try to book their slots for the week at the same time. Each student is restricted to one hour of practice every day. Hulgundi says “It's like the Hunger Games, trying to get a piano slot.”
*This article did not initially include comment from the CFE. The asterisked section was added when the Centre contacted The Edict post-publication to make its position known. The lapse is regretted. The corroboration has been made public as a measure towards credibility.
(Edited by Hiyaneijemmy Das and Keerthana Panchanathan)
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