<p>We don't want to leave the instrument in the car and it's inconvenient to lug it along on the campus tour. We won't be near the hotel. Is it safe to leave it at the admissions office, or should we just take turns carrying it around campus with us?</p>
<p>is this for an audition? also, what instrument is it? if it's a viola or smaller, i'd say you might as well carry it. if it's a cello or larger, you should probably ask to leave it in admissions... it should be safe.</p>
<p>There was only one time when we didn't leave the instruments in the car. We asked if we could leave them in the MUSIC admissions office behind the counter. Actually they ended up putting them in a locked office of one of the music admissions folks. They were very understanding and nice about it. In all other instances...we took turns carrying them...DS has a backpack case.</p>
<p>For a violin, viola, schlep it with you.</p>
<p>You might be able to plead and get a temp locker at the music building. Don't leave with admissions, or faculty. Laptops, instruments are as prone to locked office theft as anywhere else. </p>
<p>These also have been known to work:
Unless you are in a serious sun/heat, extreme damp, or severe cold location, I would first consider leaving it in the car, preferably in a locked trunk, or a hatch back with security cover.</p>
<p>I find a messy car and shabby blanket for throwing over will help if no trunk, hatch.</p>
<p>Large, imposing dogs, preferably Rotts, Dobies, Shepherds can be effective deterents (Newfies are worthless for this, unless you want to drown a thief in drool).</p>
<p>Remove all "We own a Strad" type bumper stickers from the vehicle. </p>
<p>You can have an automatic recording of a round being racked into a chamber that automatically plays if a window broken or door opened.</p>
<p>If it's a viola, many say leave the window open and a "free" sign on the case. It will most often still be there, untouched. You may find a "no thanks" handpenciled on your free sign. (Usually the work of a vileinist).</p>
<p>Carry good and complete specific instrument insurance. :D</p>
<p>And if it is an accordion, you might find two or three more have been tossed into your car.</p>
<p>Get insurance. Once your kid becomes a student, it is even more difficult to maintain a musical instrument in a safe location.</p>
<p>We usually left it in the car, but the one time we didn't, we asked the secretary in the admissions office where we could put it while we did the school tour, and she took it behind the counter with her.</p>
<p>This is when you wish you'd trained a piccolo player...</p>
<p>Thanks Violadad for the laughs! Take his heat concern seriously. With violin, violas, etc, heat potential should be weighed.</p>
<p>Serious story, years ago, dating a flute plyer who had handmade Powell flute in tow as we were about to enter a concert in downtown Chicago. It seemed so silly to bring that instrument (valued at more than my Ford) along, it would be perfectly safe in the trunk.... At intermission, we checked outside and it looked like rain, so I ran out to retrieve umbrellas from the car. We hadn't checked all the applicable parking signs - car was being hitched up to be towed to a garage due to our use of the illegal parking space we'd found. I somehow got into the car and managed to get away from the towing company employee who chased me with a baseball bat. (Pioneer towing was notorious in Chicago.) I made it back - with Powell flute in hand - for the 2nd half of the concert. I don't believe that flute was ever left unattended again! </p>
<p>I have personally lugged violins into museums, stores, concerts, hiking trails, Niagara Falls visits (!), etc. rather than risk the car and heat or theft. Also, we have, as a family, taken turns guarding the instruments while others toured whatever tour site was on our route.</p>
<p>Lots of fun!!!!!!!!!</p>
<p>At some schools they make special arrangements in a secure area for the instruments, which are checked with the guards there, while students are taking theory tests and campus tours. Other than that, hopefully the case can be adjusted for back pack style carrying. Even a cello is fairly manageable on the back.....one local graduate student commutes on a bicycle with his on his back! Most if not all instruments should never be left in the car because of extremes of temperature and humidity. Good luck.</p>
<p>We've always left the instrument in the car, trunk whenever possible. S has a wheeled case also that we can roll although he only likes to do it indoors on smooth floors because he thinks it bounces the instrument too much to whell on concrete sidewalks, for example. If car is parked in an open public area in broad daylight or, even better, guarded parking lot, I would feel safer leaving it there than with a stranger.</p>
<p>Daughter has a pneumatic tire that fits where the endpin normally goes on her bass. (Picture a string bass inside a padded soft case perched on a very small unicycle.) She must have some tens of miles on it by now and gets all kinds of comments when wheeling it around from the ubiquitous "Don't you wish you'd studied piccolo?" to my personal favorite, "Hey, is that a trombone?" I seem to remember one school tour where she actually did wheel the thing around because there was nowhere safe to leave it. I used to be worried about the vibrations, but the air in the tire must cushion them pretty well because I have seen no damage to the instrument in the years she has been using the wheel. </p>
<p>We would only keep an instrument of any value in the car for short periods when the temperature would not get too extreme one way or the other.</p>
<p>BassDad,</p>
<p>I guess that brings a new conotation to "getting pumped up" for a gig.</p>
<p>Sometimes having your instrument around can work out pretty well. We once went to a recital by Anne-Sophie Mutter right after a violin lesson with no time to stop home first. The violin came along to the dismay of some people sitting near us. After the concert, we bought a CD for autographing and she ended up also signing and drawing a treble clef (both huge) on my son's violin case - now a collector's item!</p>
<p>Is THAT how grandma's accordion collection has grown now to 7!?</p>
<p>It might have been, or she may have inadvertently left two of them together in the same closet...</p>
<p>Well, at least you've got me laughing while gearing up to carry the thing along with us everywhere we go...</p>
<p>Any time we asked to leave cello in an admissions office, it was accepted with care.</p>
<p>^^^ Same here.</p>
<p>Tubason has a backpack style carrier. He's even lugged it that way from NJ on train, through NYC subway, etc for rehearsals and auditions. He's by far the most fit in our family, maybe it's connected. </p>
<p>He's never admitted to wishing he'd chosen flute!</p>