CAUT Guidelines

[Richard West]

Don:

I haven't consulted the guidelines for awhile, but off the top of my head I
wondered if there's a way to look at institutional service (or any piano service)
on the basis of the type of piano and hours of use.  The Steinway guidelines that
I have do that.  For example a Steinway D in a performance area requires "X"
number of hours of regulation and tuning in order to maintain it at top
performance level.   A studio piano is figured the same way and so on for every
type of piano a music department might have.

The reason I'm curious about approaching piano service from a yearly contractual
basis is that it seems that approach would serve a variety of needs not only
institutional but private.  Why is it, for example, that so few private
technicians only sell their work based on a tuning.  It seems there are very few
people out there who try to say to a customer that a charge per year for total
maintenace would be a specified amount.  The emphasis would be on total service,
not just tuning.  Perhaps the CAUT guidelines addresses this aspect of piano
maintenance.  It not, maybe it should be looked into.

Richard West
University of Nebraska

Donald R McKechnie wrote:

> List,
>
> As many of you know, the CAUT committee is charged with studying and revising
> the CAUT Guidelines publication. We would like your help in determining what
> needs to be added and what needs to be changed. For the most part, the
> document stands very well as is but there are two primary issues that need to
> be addressed.
>
> First, the addition of information regarding contract technicians has been on
> the table for some time. Bill Shull from the CAUT committee is coordinating
> this effort. Please e-mail him with your comments and suggestions.
> (bdshull@aol.com) If anyone wants to start a dialog on this list that would be
> just fine.
>
> The second issue is the Guidelines formula. There have been comments and
> criticism about the formula. However, I do not remember seeing any changes
> suggested. If anyone has ideas about changing the formula, please post on this
> list or e-mail me.
>
> I have some thoughts that might get the ball rolling on the formula issue. One
> of the criticisms' administrators will have is the Base component. No matter
> how well the argument is made on having 60 as the Base, they will see that as
> unrealistic. One solution would be to change the base number. On a computer
> database, using the formula, one can easily change to whatever Base you want.
> Going up to 100 is pushing the limit in my opinion. I have done this with the
> inventory here at IC. The results show 4 technicians at Base 60 and 2 at
> Base100. What about the remaining variables in the formula? Are they good or
> in need of change?
>
> In my quest to have an assistant technician hired here at IC, I have used the
> Guidelines as part of my justification. No success so far but I believe my
> full argument does not get in the hands of the powers that be. That is another
> story for another time. During the process of getting my justification ready
> this year, I was in contact with Ken Eschete at Northwestern. He suggested I
> use charts and/or graphs to get the point across that the school is losing
> money by not hiring another technician. I did not have time to come up with
> anything useful due to the deadline.
>
> Ken’s suggestion made me wonder if something like this could be incorporated
> into the Guidelines. Having little experience in presenting information of
> this style, it is going to be a bit challenging for me to come up with
> something useful. Is it possible to add some sort of generic template to the
> Guidelines that will bolster the effectiveness of the document? Any ideas
> welcome.
>
> If there is anyone out there who does not have a clue on what I am talking
> about, contact the PTG Home Office and order a copy of the Guidelines. Phone -
> 816/753-7747, e-mail - ptg@ptg.org
>
> Don McKechnie
> Ithaca College
> dmckech@ithaca.edu