It's an interesting idea. But there are a few things that come to mind... First, there doesn't seem to be any real quantifiable measure of how "good" the piano tuning really is. It's entirely possible that the winner might be one of the worst tunings on one of the best sounding pianos. Second, I'm not sure how you'd quantify the "prize". Sounds like it might be a job with a piano store and the potential for some outside work, which might be difficult if they're working fulltime for the piano store. Hmmm. I did wonder if many tuners would even want to bother with such a thing. I can see a group who already have good businesses that wouldn't want to step into a situation like you described and maybe don't feel like they have to prove their tuning ability to anyone except the customers that they already have. I can also see another group of tuners that might be used to slapping out 20 minute tunings and nice sales pitches that know they'd have a hard time competing with anyone of any tuning caliber, and maybe don't want to discover they're not such great tuners after all (??). I dunno. It's an interesting idea but maybe needs tweaking?? Brian > Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2010 14:11:11 -0700 > From: afinetune at yahoo.com > To: pianotech at ptg.org > Subject: [pianotech] Piano Tuning Competition > > "Bi-Annual Piano Tuning Competition > > The XYZ Piano Company is pleased to announce its bi-annual piano competition. > > All area piano technicians interested in having more customers are encouraged to enter the competition. Entry fee is $10. > > Each piano technician will have the opportunity to tune two pianos which will be chosen at random by XYZ, one grand piano and one vertical piano. Technicians are limited to one and one half hours per piano. All tunings will be scheduled by the company and must follow the time limits strictly. Any method may be employed in the tuning procedure, as long as the A=440Hz. standard is adhered to. If the piano is tuned in less than the allotted time, the technician, at his discretion, may make any other adjustments to the piano he wishes, in accordance with accepted techniques, such as voicing or regulation. These details may have a bearing on the judges' decision. > > The pianos will be judged for tuning by three judges, each of whom will have one hour to privately play and evaluate all the pianos that have been tuned for this event. The judges will score all the grand pianos on a 100 point scale, then separately score all the vertical pianos on a 100 point scale. The three judges' scores will be averaged to give each piano a final score. The piano technician whose two pianos have the highest combined scores, will be declared the winner. In case of a tie, and random drawing will determine the winner. Judges are also encouraged to write any comments about the tunings in order to aid the technicians in the future. The identity of the judges will not be made known to the technicians prior to the judging. > > The winning technician will be offered the job of being XYZ's official piano technician for the following two years. As such, he will tune and maintain the store pianos for an agreed upon fee, and will be referred any outside piano technical jobs that the store may receive. > > Judges for the event are chosen from among the area's piano teachers or professional pianists. Each judge will be paid an agreed upon fee for his services." > > Has anyone heard of anything like this actually happening? Could, or should it happen? Why, or why not? > ------------------------------------------------------------- > A FINE TUNE - Piano Tuning & Repairs > Wallace T. Scherer, piano technician, music educator > Lake Worth, Florida Telephone: 561-432-4121 > Web page: http://aftune.angelfire.com > ------------------------------------------------ > FREE TICKETS: http://aftune.angelfire.com/freetics.html > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20101015/692fe6a2/attachment.htm>
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