[CAUT] Faculty as Colleagues, was Steinway... The "Safe" Piano.

[Ed Sutton]

Jeff-

You have a way of reporting on your experience as if it is, and always will 
be universal. It is perhaps common, but not universal.

There are exceptions. We can learn from them, and increase the chances of 
there being more exceptions. We may not live to reach the Promised Land, but 
now and then we get a glimpse.

Even more amazing, sometimes the Promised Land comes to visit us when we 
least expect it. Especially if we don't drive it away.

Best regards,
Ed Sutton (Former full-time, now mostly self-employed, very part-time 
contract CAUT)


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jeff Tanner" <tannertuner at bellsouth.net>
To: <caut at ptg.org>
Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2008 5:39 PM
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Faculty as Colleagues, was Steinway... The "Safe" Piano.


> Rick Florence wrote:
> "We are as involved in the musical process as most faculty.  It is to our 
> advantage to be considered colleagues as opposed to staff.  We have more 
> to offer than solely the service of  pianos."
>
> Now, Rick,
> You and I and most of the rest of us understand and agree with that.  But 
> the music faculty most certainly do not, and never will.
>
> "If we allow ourselves to be marginalized by not participating in such 
> important decisions, we put ourselves in the position of being thought of 
> as nothing more than piano mechanics."
>
> Unfortunately, I'm afraid the music faculty puts us there without any 
> effort or lack thereof on our part.
>
> "For a group that constantly complains about the lack of pay and respect 
> in our profession, we sure have a strange way of enabling such a position 
> by assuming such a benign existence."
>
> This, I agree with 100%.  But the down to earth reality is that until 
> there is a university degree that awards a doctorate in piano technology 
> (which would be about the silliest example of diminishing returns we could 
> endeavor to create), I'm afraid that we will always be looked at as mere 
> custodians by those who have the doctoral degrees.  It is a sad thing to 
> say, but those degrees are about the only thing that gives many academic 
> types their self worth, and with them they create their own little 
> disengaged world where anyone else who doesn't have one doesn't belong. 
> The reality about lack of pay and respect in our profession is that 
> academic musicians with doctoral degrees are our glass ceiling and they're 
> not working for much more.  Just let one of them find out that that lowly 
> piano tuner is making more than they are.  I later found out that when I 
> was initially hired at USC, the junior piano faculty with a doctorate 
> found out I got a couple thousand more than he was making (which was a 
> pittance) and he created quite a ruckus.  It didn't matter that with his 
> position there was opportunity for advancement whereas with mine there was 
> not.  It was all about that degree.
>
> That is the biggest reason I got out.  There was no way to ever move up.
>
> Jeff Tanner
>
>