---------- Forwarded Message ---------- From: Bill Spurlock, RPT, 74077,3053 TO: Jack Reeves, INTERNET:reevesj@byugate.byu.edu DATE: 11/12/94 10:40 PM RE: Copy of: diatribe The other day Vince responded to my initial posting, and I mistakenly addressed the response only to him, rather than as a general posting. So, here it is: <"Indeed, however well PACE is written (and it is marvelous), it does take "continuing education" to a different level. It does undeniably tread where the piano technology schools are, a place where PTG was unwilling to go in the past.> Really? I don't understand this statement. It seems to me that PTG has always provided educational opportunities that the authors/instructors attempted to make as clear and effective as possible. Is my current series on vertical regulation any more comprehensive than was David Pitch's exhaustive 50 step grand regulation series several years ago? Was it OK for Bob Davis & Dale Erwin, and Nick Gravagne, to each cover hammer filing last winter, but improper for me to do it just because my articles had the word PACE above them? Were Susan Graham's articles on flange rebushing & repinning any less comprehensive than my PACE article on the subject? I don't think so. Then what is it about the PACE series that has some people upset? If the PACE articles are perceived as better, then is someone saying that PTG can only provide educational materials as long as they are not very good? Please don't read the above as sarcastic. I don't intend it that way at all, but rather as honest inquiry. I simply cannot understand the suggestion that PTG is erring by producing "marvelous" educational materials. As for competition with the schools, that idea is simply a red herring. The schools had been in decline for years before PACE came along. It was not our fault then, nor is it now. In a free market system, it seems to me that: 1) Competition makes all players better, and produces a better product. If PTG's materials can evolve, so can (and should) the schools' offerings. 2) When a product loses market share, the best solution is for the producer to improve his/her product, not for competitors to back away so a less competitive product will survive. "But PTG is giving away free training" someone will say. To which I would answer: Journal articles, chapter technicals, and hands-on tutoring have always existed at the chapter and convention level. We do this because our mission is to promote professional competency, because the piano industry badly needs an effective service segment. I am sorry that schools are struggling, but the fact that some tutors are able to get all the paying students they can handle should cause others to look for the real causes of their decline. Last but far from least, is everyone aware how many PTG materials (Journal articles, convention class tapes, class handouts, PTG publications) are being used by tuning schools? I hope that no one is suggesting that it is OK for schools to use materials produced by volunteer, dues-paying PTG members, but that it is not OK for us to use them ourselves! It is the poorly serviced piano, and not the educated technician, that is the enemy. Bill Spurlock
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