Endangered and Coming of Age

[k.swafford@genie.com]

     Congratulations are in order to Fern Henry for her article in the
January/February 1996 issue of Piano & Keyboard Magazine.  The piece
covers a bit of the PTG's history, including the development of our
current certification program and the advancement of tuning theory
that came in the process.  It touches on our membership
classifications and PTG's efforts to enhance piano technology as a
profession by development of both client education materials and
technical education, that is, the Journal, newly-published books, and
seminars (but no mention of local chapters).

     The title of Fern's piece was "Piano Technicians Come of Age."
Let's see...  The title of the piece by James Boyk in the December
1995 issue of Scientific American was, "The Endangered Piano
Technician."

     What more dramatic an illustration of the challenges we face as
piano technicans than the juxtaposition (just a month apart) of these
two articles!  The PTG works hard to desseminate technical know-how to
technicians far and wide, and yet there clearly is the perception
among at least some of our customers that only a very few technicians
can possibly have the skills needed to work at a high level.

     Indeed, just this week I spoke with the head of the piano
department of one of the colleges that now has an opening for a piano
technician.  (He was calling me because an applicant had listed me as
a reference.)  He brought up the Scientific American article and
voiced concern about the difficulty of finding someone good and said
words to the effect that they wanted to move quickly to find someone,
fearing that if they waited, there would be no one qualified to take
the position.

     Since I know, or think I do, quite a number of technicians that
would be qualified for such a position, the question becomes, is the
problem that the word simply isn't getting out about the PTG and the
fact that it has improved the level of piano technolgy that is
generally available, or is it that we piano technicians and PTG
members are not quite as good as we think we are?  Or is it a
combination of both?

    I'm all ears.

                                             Kent Swafford