Guidelines comments

[Jim Busby]

Fred,

I agree with you. If we could only put it across that clearly and
succinctly to the administrators... 

If it's any help, here at BYU we have around 404 pianos, 2 fulltime
technicians, 2 student understudies, and 2 part time contracted
technicians. We have a history of having university technicians.
However, our "rival" U. of Utah doesn't, and consequently their 57 or so
new Steinways are feeling it. Even though some fine technicians are
hired to "tune" them they still don't receive the care they need. If you
want to compare the difference between the have (techs) and the have
nots this could be a good example.

Jim Busby BYU

-----Original Message-----
From: caut-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces@ptg.org] On Behalf Of
Fred Sturm
Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2003 3:41 PM
To: College and University Technicians
Subject: Re: Guidelines comments

	I'm afraid I have to disagree with you, Wim. Administrators are
willing to 
pay what it takes to hire the football coach who will win them the
required 
number of games. They are willing to pay for the number of
groundskeepers 
it takes to keep the flowers and grass looking pretty. They'll buy the 
computers and pay for the LANL and support staff to stay at the cutting 
edge of technology. None of those expenditures saves them money. They do
it 
because it is necessary to achieve a level of excellence.
	If you want to achieve a level of excellence in music, your
pianos have to 
be kept at a high level (and you need a good faculty, and a good
facility, 
etc, etc). To keep your pianos at a high level, you need qualified 
technicians at a predictable ratio to your number of pianos. Just like
you 
need a predictable number of groundskeepers per acre of lawn. I don't
think 
this is hard to understand. Even for an administrator ;-)
	Now as to how credible our document is, that will depend to a
large degree 
on the number and range of endorsements we can get. I'm hoping Steinway,

Kawai, and Yamaha will follow through on their willingness (expressed in

Chicago) to at least consider endorsing. And that individual
endorsements 
will start to pour in from fellow CAUT's (7 so far and counting).
	There are plenty of other ways we can be more persuasive. One
possibility 
is to come up with "real life stories" of institutions of various sorts 
(from large state to small liberal arts to conservatory to community 
college) which have situations we would describe as good with respect to

pianos. They're out there, but it would take some effort to find them, 
obtain adequate data, and write them up. It would be a good project,
IMO. 
But we have lots more projects than we have persistent people to carry
out, 
at least at the moment.
	
Fred

--On Thursday, June 12, 2003 4:57 PM -0400 Wimblees@aol.com wrote:
>
> Unfortunately, trying to convince bean counters that the school needs
to
> spend money on piano tuners is going to fall on deaf ears, if we can't
> show them it is going to save them money. Just telling an
administrator
> that WE say one full time piano tuner is needed for 70 - 100 pianos,
> because WE say what needs to be done to keep piano working the way WE
say
> they should work, is just not going to cut it. I think we have to
show,
> with actual case studies, that investing in a piano tuner is going to
> save them money in the long run. We have to show, in writing, with
> examples, that, to paraphrase the Fram Oil Filter commercial "you need
to
> pay a piano tuner now, or you will have to buy new pianos sooner."
>
> If we can show that a qualified piano tuner can postpone the purchase
of
> new pianos by 20 or even 40 years, they might listen. But just telling
> them that investing in a piano tuner is going to make the pianos play
and
> sound better, only a few piano professors are going to agree with you.
> But the bean counter, and maybe even the rest of the department, is
going
> to say, so what, I'd rather have the money for scholarships, or some
new
> music, or a new desk in my office.
>
> The new Guidelines are very good, and helpful, and hopefully it will
give
> a few department chairs the ammunition they need to get a qualified
piano
> tuner. I'm trying to suggest a few ways to make the guidelines even
> better. It will require some more work on our part. But we've gone
this
> far, so why not go the extra mile, and make it even better?
>
> Wim


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