10 excuses....

Billbrpt@AOL.COM Billbrpt@AOL.COM
Wed, 12 Jun 2002 10:06:04 EDT


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In a message dated 6/12/02 8:19:47 AM Central Daylight Time, 
hoffsoco@martin.luther.edu (Conrad Hoffsommer) writes:


> There's an expression which comes to mind:
> 
> PUT UP OR SHUT UP!
> 
> If things are soooooo boring, why don't you do some research and teach an 
> interesting course or two of your own?
> 
> Some time ago, I offered you a chance to do an HVLP tuning demo at the 
> recent regional seminar. (I arranged for many of the instructors/classes, 
> and thus was qualified to give that as a serious offer) - I'm sure the 
> attendence at the seminar would have been WAY up just to see both of us on 
> the same stage... ;-}
> 
> Silence.
> 
> Tim Farley gave well attended and interesting classes there - I didn't see 
> you...
> 
> I even prepared an HT concert given on a harpsichord AND a fortepiano - two 
> different temperaments - I suppose that would have been too boring, too?
> 
> 
> >I'm not going because I'm just plain NOT INTERESTED!
> 
> I'll miss you.
> 
If you sent me an E-mail inviting me to give a presentation, I never saw it.  
The reason probably was that I deleted it without reading as I often do to 
your posts.  Most often, there is no content in them I consider worthwhile, 
just consumption of bandwidth for the sake of filling space, nothing more.

The weekend of the Central West Regional Seminar, I was already engaged to 
perform as a musician in Minneapolis, which I did.  I'll be in Chicago the 
weekend of the Convention but will be performing downtown.  I considered that 
opportunity more worthwhile than the PTG Convention.  Why?  Yes, I guess 
Keith is right.  I'd rather be making music among people who appreciate and 
want what I have to offer rather than seeing the scowling faces of people who 
have predetermined that what I do is of no value and do not even want to see 
anything like it on the schedule.

Your performances in HT's at the seminar are all well and good but our 
organization happens to be the *Piano* Technicians Guild, not the Harpsichord 
or Fortepiano society whose interest is keeping alive period instruments and 
their tunings.  What the PTG Convention (and that seminar) will *not* have is 
an opportunity for interested people to compare the difference in the way a 
modern grand piano sounds when tuned in a way other than the usual.

The HT class will be given by someone who takes care of *antique* instruments 
at a museum.  All well and good, of course.  The only other HT offering will 
be in a Fortepiano class, another *antique* piano class.  The Institute 
Committees which plan the Convention schedule have always permitted any HT 
presence with great reluctance and always find a way to put it off in a 
corner, clearly downplaying its importance and make every effort to see that 
as few people as possible will attend and make conditions as difficult as 
possible for anyone to prepare for the event.

What interests me the most is not even an HT at all but an entirely new way 
to tune the modern piano based upon historical precedents combined with 
entirely new ideas about octave tuning.  I have researched this area fully 
and could teach it at any time.  Two years ago, I was offered 45 minutes 
which I turned down because there would have been no opportunity to really 
hear music on a piano tuned this way.  I also sustained an injury which would 
have forced me to cancel so either way, I could not have done it that year.

My idea was presented at the Temperament Festival in 1998.  The Institute 
Committee put the event at the very *end* of the Convention when many people 
were sure to have already gone, made things difficult for the organizer, 
claimed it was too *stressful* and one of the members, Wally Brooks sought 
out several opportunities to harass and cajole me while I was trying to 
prepare the piano for the event.

Nevertheless, the tuning I did won overwhelming acclamation as I fully 
expected it would.  I would expect that it would at or in any event.  What I 
think is that the people who organize these kinds of events know this and 
don't want that to happen for personal reasons, mainly, that if such an idea 
were to become popular, *they* may find it necessary to learn how to do it 
and that is the very last thing that *they* want to do.

So, I'll stick with what I said, I am not going to the Convention because 
there will be nothing offered which interests me and plenty which rubs me the 
wrong way.

Bill Bremmer RPT
Madison, Wisconsin
 <A HREF="http://www.billbremmer.com/">Click here: -=w w w . b i l l b r e m m e r . c o m =-</A> 

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