[CAUT] CAUT Endorsement

[Jeff Tanner]

On Oct 22, 2007, at 7:50 PM, Fred Sturm wrote:

> 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.

Yes, it is important.  But I think we as technicians might over value  
that importance because it is an area we take a lot of pride in -  
because it is the only part of our work that IS visible.  I haven't  
said it right yet.  But it is still a fraction of the job.  And yes  
it is more than 2% of the workload (though nothing like 20% here  
until late in the semester), but the concert instruments only  
represent 2% of my inventory.  It might be 20% of your workload  
because you are half time.  But perhaps 5% of my time is spent in the  
recital hall until after the mid point of the fall semester.  It gets  
busier after that, but I'm only granted an hour a day in there, so it  
can't get to 20% of a full workday even if I need the entire hour  
every day.

There is so much more to CAUT work that is more like being an  
assembly line worker.  A good CAUT candidate might not be the best  
concert tuner, but be better suited to the overall job than a good  
concert tuner because of the nature of the rest of the work.  I think  
we like to think it is more important because our concert skills have  
been touted.  But I submit in reality, that importance is over  
exaggerated.

If one can pass the RPT exam at CTE level, I would wager he or she  
would get no complaints on their concert tuning from anyone in the  
majority of university settings, especially if the unisons and  
stability scores are high.  I think most university faculties would  
be quite satisfied with the concert work of a technician with those  
types of tuning scores, a very high score on the grand regulation  
portion of the technical exam and a good dose of confidence, if they  
were a really good manager of the rest of the work.  Sure we'd like  
to create this ideal super technician.  But that just isn't based in  
reality.

Granted, as I have said before, many of you on this list work for  
upper echelon music departments where a bit higher standard might be  
required, and it might be more predictable what the needs would be  
from institution to institution at that level.  And that is probably  
part of why some of you interpret my words as an endorsement for  
mediocrity.  That isn't at all my position.  But I submit it is  
difficult for those who work at conservatories and better music  
departments to be able to relate to what the average music department  
needs in a piano technician.  Even here (we have a respectable  
school, I think, but not conservatory level), because we have newer  
instruments, it is difficult for me to relate to the needs of a  
department with a lot of old pianos.  When I was hired, we didn't  
particularly need a technician who could redesign actions or recap  
bridges, and still don't.  And much of what has come to be needed in  
the meantime has been learned on the job.  Little of that could have  
been taught in a class or evaluated in a skills exam.

Each institution will need a different kind of technician with  
different kinds of skills based on their inventory.  I just think  
creating a one size fits all CAUT endorsement exam will be counter  
productive because we just can't evaluate the varying needs of every  
institution in an exam that can be given in a few hours.  And it  
doesn't make sense to me to set the bar so high that only a handful  
of positions around the country would really benefit from the skill  
set identified in an exam.  If we are going to do anything at all, it  
seems to me we need to be identifying technicians who have the basic  
skill sets to manage most collegiate piano inventories - not just for  
the New England Conservatory positions announcements that come open  
every 20 years.

And I think it is possible that may be mostly traits that just aren't  
testable.




Jeff Tanner, RPT
University of South Carolina



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