Hello List, I have been following closely the recent flurry of discussion over salary, reputation, accreditation, etc. As a young technician continually evaluating my place in our industry, and planning for the future, such discussion seems vital to me... keep it up. I am one of two vendor technicians for Whitman College in Walla Walla, WA. A proud liberal arts college with huge endowments and huge tuition. Yet the fleet of 40 pianos has an AVERAGE age of 50 years old :( The head of the music department has made colossal strides in the last decade in acquiring newer pianos, slightly increasing maintenance budget, and securing a loaner program from Kawai. These pianos need help. I want to help them. There is not enough budget to see each piano tuned more than once a year, let alone begin to attend to the laundry list of needed repairs. Some are too far gone and not worth rehabilitation, but a few could live again. The caut guidelines were indispensable in my discussions with the department head last year regarding long term strategy. Considering the current budget versus demand there is nowhere to go but up. It would be difficult enough for a veteran caut tech to whip this department into shape, and I am far from a veteran. In the technician way I seek to do no harm. This means not venturing voicing techniques beyond my means, which could ruin a hammer, not altering regulation unless I am dedicated to put in unpaid time to ensure that the end result is at least an improvement over the pianos original state. I am discounting my rates considerably to provide incentive for extra service. I am glad to operate on the financial losing side of this equation as the gains in experience are worth a great deal to me. Yet I realize there is only so much free service I can provide before cementing my reputation as a "beginner", and making the possibility of a good salary and respect unobtainable. These are their pianos, and I am not their employee and I do not have financial or technical discretionary privilege, yet there is so much for me to learn from these pianos. I have half a mind to offer thousands of dollars of work for hundred of dollars, just to get in there and have the freedom to experiment and learn. It would undermine my business completely to do such a thing in the private sector, and if I wait around for clients to go for action regulations, new strings/hammers, voicing, etc. I will never learn. There is only so much I can do on my own piano. What kind of relationship do I establish with the college here which will allow me to prove my worth while increasing my skills? My dilemma is this. How do I maintain my pace of development in this backwater town? I owe it to myself to make a go at building a career here (I am a year and a half into said business building)... my wife and I still are poor, paying off student loans, etc... I find myself salivating over each new job opening that appears, the thought of knowing when my next paycheck will arrive and how much it will be for, medical benefits! being less dependent on capricious word of mouth and expensive costly advertising ventures, it all sounds pretty good. This latest U. of Michigan sounds particularly attractive in that its entry requirements are quite low, and it makes little mention of concert prep, leading me to believe the Piano Tech lead will be staying on, and this new position is a secondary staff technician capacity. A wonderful learning setting! I have already had an apprenticeship (1 year, pianoforte in Boston, MA), and three years of private business. I avidly attend each PTG meeting and what extra technical seminars pop up in my area, I've got the written and tuning under my belt, and live with my technical exam prep source manual, so RPT is hopefully happening this spring at PNW convention... One of the courses or schools would be great, but completely impractical at this point. I am on good terms with the other two working techs in town, but seeking mentorship from active competitors is awkward. I want to fill in my gaps! I do not want to convey a sense of impatience, as I have and will continue to put in the time needed to refine my skills (on and on for a lifetime), but I do want to be structured and steer my career growth appropriately. It is true the final stage of learning is teaching. Until you can demystify your craft with uncompromising precision, you don't understand it enough. Perhaps the final stage of teaching is the creation and provision of an examination which can be uniformly administered and yield relevant and quantifiable assessment of the examinee. To do so requires both the "macro" and "micro" mastery of piano technology. Much of our daily work raises the specter of piano gremlins. Those capricious forces which cause mystery clicks, rattles, inconsistencies in performance, etc... one seeks to deduce a diagnosis by isolating symptoms systematically, and can often reasonably come to a conclusion which will recommend the remedial steps which hopefully eliminate what ails, thereby affirming our line of reasoning and, little by little, affirm the many precepts involved in our reasoning which come to form our battery of professional expertise. This detective work is what draws many of us to the trade. Yet what of those instances where one eliminates a symptom by chance without that line of reasoning, or worse yet, is unable to address a persistent mystery. Wracked with guilt and self-doubt one seeks council in his/her peers, books, etc... but can only truly expunge his or her demons by eliminating the problem. Sometimes the correct answer is presented and one simply lacks the "knack" for realizing the prescribed solution, one hasn't cultivated the physical technique required, and all the right answers and advice can not take the place of practice... It seems inevitable that each of us must carry with us daily the unique combination of our abilities, knowledge, and gaping holes of ignorance... the difference lies in what we do with our blindspots. Do we chalk up our shortcomings to piano gremlins? Do we allow ourselves for a moment to ascribe to a subjectivists point of view, that thinking positive will keep our tuning stable, that flowing through our tuning and regulation are invisible pixies, changing let-off at a whim, altering touchweight to match our mood? Or do we have faith in the tireless eternity of physics, the unwavering properties of mechanics... and believe deeply that while we might not have the answer, there is an answer. One, inarguable, calculable stream of equations and measurements, that given total recall and massive brilliance we could hold in our mind and see with utter clarity all the forces acting upon a pianos performance, from microsecond to microsecond. We could predict each minute effect of any repair or treatment we might perform on this system of interrelated constants and choose from them that which will yield our most desired results... While none among us may be such a god, it is the striving for this unobtainable clarity which guides my every action. Herein the apprentices pithy question of "Yes sensei, but what is the right process", is not one of laziness, our __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/caut.php/attachments/20071024/19df6a6f/attachment-0001.html
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