[CAUT] CAUT credential vs. academic program?

[A440A at aol.com]

Israel writes:

<<   It still seem to me that the widest variety of methods and 
approaches I was exposed to - without being told which is the best - 
was in my time at the North Bennet Street School. From a variety of 
teachers - with diametrically opposed approaches. Some of them I 
still use. Some I have rejected as inappropriate for the 
circumstances in which I find myself working. Some don't fit the way 
my mind, eyes or hands work. >>

Greetings, 
         I could have written the above, verbatim.  Our life's experience is 
based on our perception, and that is based on our perspective.  No way will a 
self-taught tech have the perspective of one schooled in the craft by a 
variety of instructors.  And yes, the quality of the instructors is the biggest 
factor in the success of the schooling.  Maybe any of us could reach the higest 
level, given enough time.  Is is possible for a dummy to figure out in five 
years what a genius figures out in five minutes?  I don't know, but I suspect a 
threshold somewhere that separates what you can learn on your own, and what must 
be taught.  
       However, the headstart that formal schooling provides is so valuable, 
that it seems a no-brainer, to me.  If one is going to seriously attempt to 
support themselves in this trade, going to school makes a lot more sense than 
having to re-invent every tool, technique, and business model.  Life is too 
short to discard the value found in the wisdom of others. 
      In my own case, having learned to tune from Garlick/Betts,  I was able 
to not only come straight to Nashville, as a green tuner,  and compete head to 
head with the oldest, most experienced, tuner in the the recording studios, 
but I was able to charge more and I was swamped!  No machines in use, this was 
fork and strip tuning.  That $18 per tuning was big money in 1976, and I 
remember thinking about how cheap an investment North Bennett was proving to be.  I 
had no idea how valuable that year invested would be.  
    Another facet to this is that learning in a formal school program confers 
a distinguishable approach to the craft.  The student not only learns 
techniques, but also, a work philosophy.  With musical instrument people, this work 
outlook tends to be attached to whole life-views, and it is not uncommon to see 
us over-zealously defend "our way" of doing something with more fervor than 
interval width or glue time warrants.  To alter our craft would require us to 
alter more of ourselves than we are willing. This stance is a guaranteed 
hindrance on progress.   Schools take a little of that away, substituting an 
identifiable beginning to our life's learning, and the policy of flexibility from the 
beginning to help it continue long after school is out.
Regards,    

Ed Foote RPT 
http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html
www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html
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