[CAUT] CAUT position announcements, CAUT Academy

[Leslie Bartlett]

Just to be devil's adequate (some might wonder which of the words to 
accent), the organist at the church where I serve grew up playing a 
Lester Spinet.  She went on to do graduate work at Eastman.  A former 
organist grew up something worst than a Lester and also did fabulous 
work.  If a person wants music badly enough, they'll create it in their 
heads while making horrible sounds on totally inadequate POS's.  This is 
a strong argument for those who refuse to maintain instruments to PTG 
standards.  I suspect there's a very hot place which will freeze over 
before schools will listen carefully to the best intended technicians, 
or for that matter consider maintaining salaries as an important item in 
their budget.  If techs continue to work for little, this part time tech 
who loves the little campus he serves,  one can suspect things won't 
change much.
JMHO
les bartlett
> Ed Sutton
>
> My best guess is that there are probably 200 - 300 employee positions 
> for piano techs in higher education (some less than full time). Some 
> of the big schools have multiple techs.
> The NASM battle is a difficult one. I made a pretty big effort a 
> couple years ago when they were doing a major review of their manual. 
> I presented what I thought was a very reasonable proposal (in specific 
> language to add sentences to specific clauses in their handbook) just 
> to add some kind of evaluation of the condition of the pianos and the 
> adequacy of their care to the picture (not trying to set a standard, 
> just adding pianos to the things being looked at and reported on). I 
> submitted it through the channels provided, and received not a peep in 
> response. 
> From much experience with NASM (my chair is heavily involved, serving 
> as an evaluator), I think it unlikely that this will be a successful 
> venture - they are focused on academic standards, adequacy of the 
> curriculum, faculty qualifications, that kind of thing. Doesn't mean 
> we shouldn't keep hammering away when the opportunity arises, but I am 
> skeptical about the potential results. 
> It is possible right now to have evaluation of the condition of pianos 
> and of their care be part of the self-evaluation portion of the 
> accreditation process. That is up to the individual music department, 
> and at its initiative.
> I think that our best approach is to demonstrate quality, in a very 
> broad, grass-roots way. When schools (and individual faculty) see what 
> pianos can be like when they are well-serviced, they will demand it 
> (faculty will demand it when they move to a different school).  When 
> pianos are simply tuned and repaired, kept working on a level 
> consistent with common in home usage, that's what people get used to, 
> and they don't even know things can be better. The other side of this 
> coin is to be able to identify technicians who have the skill to 
> provide the level of service. And there our efforts to provide 
> training and some sort of certification (endorsement) may give us a 
> way of marketing to the higher ed audience: "You need a qualified tech 
> to provide the level of service appropriate for a music department. 
> How do you find one? Hire someone with a caut endorsement."
> "Employed" cauts are a small part of the picture. The real issue is 
> providing adequate, comprehensive service to music departments, most 
> of which contract their piano work. The norm, I believe, is contract 
> per service, where a set number of tunings are done per year, and 
> other work is only done when specifically authorized. This is a 
> terrible model IMO. We need to find ways to design piano service 
> contracts so that the comprehensive service needed is built in. I'm 
> not talking about major rebuilds, rather about keeping up with 
> brushing knuckles, refining regulation, filing hammers and voicing, 
> key bushings, that sort of thing. 
>
> Regards,
> Fred Sturm
> University of New Mexico
> fssturm at unm.edu <mailto:fssturm at unm.edu>
>
>
>
>
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