ETD Question

[Brian Trout]

Hi Terry,

No flames from here.

You bring up interesting and thought provoking questions.

I probably said more than I need to on the subject, but one last thought
came to mind that I have to pass on, and then I'm going to shut up on the
subject.

I read a couple of phrases that lead one to believe that using an ETD can be
harmful to the well-being of the technician using it.  Well, I've got some
bad news.  The car you drive?   It can be harmful to you if you crash it
into a telephone pole, or another car.  The house you live in?  It can be
harmful to you if it falls on you during an earthquake.  The food you eat?
It can be harmful to you if it was soaked with pesticides.  The power tools
you use in your shop?  They can be very harmful to you, perhaps just as
lethal as any other thing.

All of those things are things that most of us use on a very frequent basis.
All of those things can be very harmful, even lethal, depending upon a
number of variables.  It's our job, when we use the above, to control, to
the best of our ability, those variables to make the use of them as safe as
we can.

How is that different from an ETD?  Well, first of all, an ETD won't likely
kill you if you mis-use it.  It won't likely kill your ability to tune
aurally either.  What it may do, if being used to the exclusion of aural
skills is to cause one to never receive any aural exercise in tuning.  Not
really much different than if you stopped driving you would loose a lot of
your skill.  That's not to say that if you start driving again, (tuning
aurally), you wouldn't be able to regain those skills or even surpass your
previous skills.

I keep saying it... it isn't about the tool, it's about the guy (oops, or
gal) using it.

Sort of as an aside, I was talking to another person, a secretary for
another tuner in the area, who insisted that there was no way to get a piano
to hold it's tune when using an ETD.  I was appalled at the ignorance.  It's
like the machine was the one actually turning the tuning lever and (not)
setting the pins (in their opinion, not mine.)

There's so much mis-information out there about just what an ETD can and
cannot do, and unfortunately, enough tuners out there who don't really know
how to tune (aurally or by ETD)... it's kind of sad.

I think I said enough now.  I think I need to crawl back underneath my rock.

Have a good one.

Brian Trout
Quarryville, PA
btrout@desupernet.net