[CAUT] CAUT pay, was Job Opening...

[Jeff Tanner]

On Oct 12, 2007, at 10:34 AM, Michael Magness wrote:

>  We have such people making very good money in the private sector,  
> where the work isn't nearly as necessary.
> Without mine and my brethren's "unnecessary" work where would you  
> get the students that support the music programs that require your  
> skills? I believe instead of denigrating or decrying what we do or  
> where we do it you owe us a debt of gratitude! The kind of work and  
> or piano snobbery that you exhibit with your letter is the very  
> thing I swore I would never allow myself to become when I entered  
> this business 38 years ago.


Hi Mike, others,

Wow.

It is very clear the language of my post has been terribly  
misunderstood.

I do not see how one can read my post and interpret snobbery, when  
snobbery is exactly what I think of myself as lobbying against.   
Heck, I'm an old farm boy from the bowels of south Georgia where  
Beethoven is as scarce as cream of wheat and unsweetened tea.  I  
couldn't go home if I had a lick of snobbery about me.  We all have  
private sector work that we do.  I was absolutely not trying to  
denegrate private sector work.  I don't see how what I have been  
saying has been misinterpreted this way.

But I probably should explain the train of thought that produced the  
statement that apparently has upset several of you:  297 channels for  
the 64 inch plasma tv, and the highest speed internet and video games  
will be paid for before the piano gets tuned.  Having a tuned piano  
in the home is indeed a luxury, something that is budgeted for long  
after the expensive cars, eating out, and homeowner's association  
dues are paid.  Golf clubs and country club fees, hunting clubs, guns  
and ammunition, bass boats and $200 fishing reels, gym memberships,  
civics clubs and season tickets to Gamecock football will all be  
budgeted with a higher priority.  When the economy falls off, so does  
the frequency of piano tunings, or it always has for me.   I tune for  
churches that went out and bought a nice grand piano, but if you try  
to get them to budget tuning once a year, their first reaction is,  
"oh we can't afford that."  And I've been in some of their services  
and the piano can sound just fine for their purposes years after a  
tuning.

As a general rule, private sector pianos, in my 23 years of  
experience, will stay in much better condition and tuning for a lot  
longer time than they will in the institution.  If you have not  
experienced this, you simply cannot comprehend the difference from  
the private sector to the CAUT world.  It simply is not necessary to  
tend to each family's piano 8 to 12 times per year or each teacher's  
piano a minimum of 10 to 12 times per year, or to each performance  
piano 100 or more times per year with annual hammer filings and  
reregulation.  It is the business of music schools to provide a music  
education.  The absence of climate control and the relentless usage  
of instruments in the institutional setting absolutely requires an  
exponentially greater volume of work per instrument.  In the private  
sector, chances are that if the piano tuning gets put off a couple  
years this time, it probably won't stray so far we can't bring it  
back into good shape without a lot of extra work.  But in a school of  
music, if you put off a piano tuning for two years, I guarantee you  
there will be repercussions.  Heck, you put off practice room tunings  
more than a couple months and you get petitions.  If faculty pianos  
are not tended to within a couple weeks the dean will hear about it.   
If a performance instrument is left more than a few days and unisons  
start to go squirrelly, you hear about it.  The recordings of student  
recitals are used for auditions for grad school and job interviews.

I carefully chose the words "...the work is not as necessary".   
Notice I did not say, "...the quality of work is not as necessary" as  
some of you have seemed to interpret.  Neither did I say "...the work  
is not necessary."  Perhaps a better choice of words would have been  
"the average volume of work required in the institution is higher per  
instrument than in the private sector."  Obviously, I did not expect  
to be so grossly misunderstood.

Yes, as institutional technicians, we have to have the skills to be  
able to handle higher expectations of the faculty, students, and  
guest artists.  But aside from that, the majority of the actual work  
done here isn't much different from what you run into in the private  
sector.

That isn't snobbery.  It is reality.  I live both lives.  I wear both  
hats.  I well know both worlds.  Truth is, at this point in life, if  
I could I'd rather just be in the private sector, where the amount of  
work I am expected to do is actually limited to how much time I have  
in a day.


Jeff Tanner, RPT
University of South Carolina



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