[CAUT] CAUT Endorsement

[Jim Busby]

Richard,

 

Point well taken. My "late in the day" post was somewhat tongue in cheek
so I hope no one will come and slit my tires...

 

That being said, I thought the article on "competence" was enlightening.
It made me take a very close look at myself. 

 

Regards,

Jim Busby BYU

 

 

________________________________

From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of
rwest1 at unl.edu
Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2007 8:01 AM
To: College and University Technicians
Subject: Re: [CAUT] CAUT Endorsement

 

Jim, Fred and others,

 

I think we have to be careful when we evaluate "people."  There's a dark
side to any evaluative process, and it's something that needs to be
figured into any testing or curriculum development.  That dark side is
making judgments without taking into account the subjective side of the
person or persons making the judgments.  I think there's a tendency to
ratchet up expectations to higher and higher levels, not to raise
standards but to somehow prove no one is really worthy of the high
standards that I/we believe are the "real" standards.  We've all seen
this in many emails that deal with RPT standards.  So I raise this issue
with the hope that it will be taken as constructive criticism.  Food for
thought, as it were.  Or just a friendly reminder with the hope to be
reassured that, yes, we're on the same page on this. 

 

The fact is there will always be people who do not live up to standards.
Our problem, then, is not to be overly judgmental, but assume the best
in people and build a program that is based on the belief that if "we
build it, they will come."  We need to try to find ways to not only
encourage people to get better, but to somehow open their eyes.  I
remember when I was first out of school I went to some PTG tuning
classes and thought the teachers were using too many checks and were
obsessing with minutia that really didn't make much difference in
getting a decent tuning.  I was deluding myself that a decent tuning
didn't require more than what I was doing at the time.  After all, I had
just graduated from a real tuning school (Western Iowa Tech).  I knew
better.

 

How do we get people to see the light without either appearing to be or
actually being too obsessive?  I don't know how big a problem this is in
PTG, but I have a feeling that it is behind much of our failure to reach
Associates and get them to upgrade.  

 

Richard West

 

  

On Oct 22, 2007, at 7:32 PM, Jim Busby wrote:





Fred, Jeff, others,

 

98% of my job hinges on how well I do on that 2%.

 

Personally, I think only about 2% of technicians I know are capable of
true "concert work", but 98% think they are (See attached article).

 

Just my 2% worth.

 

 

Jim Busby BYU

 

(I used to work as a prison guard, which was about 98% pure boredom and
2% sheer terror!)

 

 

 

________________________________

From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of
Fred Sturm
Sent: Monday, October 22, 2007 5:50 PM
To: College and University Technicians
Subject: Re: [CAUT] CAUT Endorsement

 

On Oct 20, 2007, at 6:18 PM, Wolfley, Eric ((wolfleel)) wrote:






the CAUT task force - and everyone else who posted on this subject - 

create the impression that the CAUT's position starts and ends with 

the quality of the concert tuning.

 

            Let me add a bit about this notion of "concert tuning"
versus "whatever other kind of tuning" there may be. We (the skills test
subcommittee) discussed a number of ideas about tuning. We thought a
caut needed to be able to do an efficient bang-up job of pitch change,
and come up with a good solid tuning in the end in a pretty short period
of time. Ken Eschete expressed another side to what kind of chops a caut
needs to have, saying we should check the seventh tuning of the day and
see how that measured up, and then the same after a week, a month. . .
Maybe a bit exaggerated, but the idea is one of focus, efficiency, chops
to get it done, and the professional attitude that says every single one
is a quality tuning, with a focus on solid.

            And we also discussed, for very good reason, on ability to
produce a "concert tuning." That is where we contribute to the end
purpose of the department: the actual public performance of music.
That's what we're all there for (the whole music department), training
students for that and contributing our bit to the process. 

            What is a concert tuning? Well, I would say it is a tuning
done with extra care, one that is able to stand up to public scrutiny.
Obviously every single tuning we do should meet that standard, ideally.
So we are really just talking about taking a little extra time and
trouble to make sure we got it as good as possible. In the same sense,
playing a piece of music in public performance isn't essentially
different from practicing or playing for a lesson, except that it is
more focused on making sure the final result is as good as possible.
Concert prep of a piano is a very similar thing: nothing essentially
different from any other prep and regulation and voicing, except that
the standards and expectations are higher. 

            Is "concert tuning and prep" a significant part of the
workload? It sure is where I work. I'd put it at over 20% of my load.
Even if it were only the 2% Jeff Tanner claims, it would be by far the
most important 2%. It is where the department shows itself to the world.
It is where the students and faculty show what they can do. It is
extraordinarily important. If you don't believe that, you have no
business working for a music department.

            Now when it came to developing a draft notion of how to
structure a caut tuning test, it was pretty obvious that major pitch
change would present considerable practical obstacles, as would having
someone tune seven pianos in a day <G>. So we decided to focus on
"concert tuning" but bring along as many of the other abilities we had
identified as we could. Efficiency and ability to produce within a real
life time frame was one. Another was solidity. There are plenty of
possible ways to go about evaluating "concert level tuning." Many people
I have heard in discussions on the topic say that we should just use
"CTE level" tuning as the standard (meaning the current test passed at
90% or above in all segments, done aurally). That is certainly one route
we could have taken. We chose a completely different route. We chose to
look at the real life chops to get a complete piano done and end up with
solid and clean unisons. And we added a bit about stretch as well, but I
think I'll leave that for another discussion.

            The point I am trying to make here is that this is not some
kind of rarified standard we are proposing. It is very much an "in the
trenches" standard, one that applies not just to the concert grand, but
to the practice piano and every single other piano we face. If you have
the chops to do an efficient and solid concert grand tuning to a solid
standard, you can do the rest as well. That is the ability we are aiming
to assess.

 

Regards,

Fred Sturm

University of New Mexico

fssturm at unm.edu

 

 

 

<competence.html>

 

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