[pianotech] RPT exam?

[Joe And Penny Goss]

Floyd,
That is great! Good luck
Joe Goss RPT
Mother Goose Tools
imatunr at srvinet.com
www.mothergoosetools.com
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Floyd Gadd" <fg at floydgadd.com>
To: <pianotech at ptg.org>
Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 12:01 AM
Subject: Re: [pianotech] RPT exam?


> I have yet to take the tuning exam, and am at a fairly early point in my
> preparation for it.
>
> I can sympathize with anyone who has difficulty hearing the beats.  I find
> my exercises in
> listening to be more encouraging on larger instruments, but the one I have
> most available to
> me right now is a console, and I am experiencing some frustration.
>
> I do not expect to hear everything I need to hear right away.  Let me draw
> an analogy to another
> field of listening and making aural distinctions.
>
> I am a teacher of singing.  When my study of pedagogy was fairly well
> underway, I decided to make use
> of a recorded resource that was designed to heighten a singer's awareness
of
> the distinction between various
> vowels.  English is my first language, and I picked up right away that
> mastering some of the vowels that are used
> in German and French, but not in English, was going to be challenging.
>
> When I first began using this audio training course, I could not for the
> life of me pick up some of the
> distinctions that I was supposed to hear and reproduce.  One pair of
vowels
> in particular baffled me--they sounded
> exactly the same to me.  At first.
>
> If I had been exposed to this material in a one or two day seminar, and
came
> at it with the expectation that by the end
> a couple of days I would have a handle on the essentials, I would probably
> come to the conclusion that the task was impossible.  But because I had an
> audio training course on tape, and was curious enough to stick with it, I
> gradually
> not only became aware of the distinctions, but was able to make
considerable
> progress toward mastery.
>
> I now encourage my students, even after they have completed a language
unit
> in their "diction for singers" class, to listen repeatedly over a period
of
> time to recordings of a native speaker reading the poetry they are
learning
> to sing.  When they are dealing with an unfamiliar language, two or three
> weeks of listening to a poem is not enough.  It takes a longer period
> of persistence to pick up the subtle details.
>
> This experience gives me courage as I seek to hear what I cannot yet hear.
> I keep on hearing people say, "If you can tune a unison, you can learn to
> tune a temperament."  If that is true, and I believe it is, I am going to
> learn to hear what I cannot yet hear.  A little of it is coming, but it is
> going to take a LOT of hours of what feels like failure--but isn't--to be
> able to gain momentum toward the exam.
>
> To draw another analogy that relates to my son, who rides a unicyle, I
have
> heard it said (and I believe it) that the key to leaning to ride the thing
> is a willingness to fall down the requisite number of times.  And the
number
> is not small.
>
> All that to say:  Take heart.  Persistence pays off!  This endeavor is not
a
> quick study for most of us.  Often when we're
> investing effort and feeling no progress, the progress is actually
> powerfully underway.  The long haul brings success.
>
> All the best!
> Floyd Gadd   www.floydgadd.com
>
>