[CAUT] Tonmeister, baccalaureate degrees, etc.

[Willem Blees]

I think Tom hit the nail on the head with his comment, "Eighteen-year-olds almost never enter college with dreams of becoming a piano technician!"  If you look at the median age of our profession, which I believe is in the high 50's, it's not because there are so many who've been at it for 40 years, but because for most of us, piano tuning is a second, or even third profession. Looking back, when I entered the field full time at age 32, I was probably one of the younger ones attending classes. 

At one of the conventions, or maybe it was at a seminar, there was a discussion about having a booth at high school job fairs. But the question was, would there be enough interest to make it worth someone's while to sit there for a day? Are there enough young people interested in going into this field?  In my 32 years in this business, I might have been approached maybe once or twice by a high school student. And even that was more or less as curiosity, not as something that they really wanted to pursue. When I was at UA, I had  PTG brochure about piano tuning on my bulletin board outside my office, and in 6 years, one person asked me about it, and he was from Cyprus.  

Piano tuning is not a very popular profession, given the fact that, depending on who's figures you want to use, there are only between 10,000 and 20,000 full time piano tuners in this country. In many areas of the country, there isn't much room for too many more of them. So why
 would a CC or university want to invest in a piano tech program? There is a reason why those schools that did have a program have, discontinued it. 

Jim, could you explain a little more about the school that's approached you about starting up a program? How are they planning on doing it, and why?

Wim

-----Original Message-----
From: McNeilTom at aol.com
To: caut at ptg.org
Sent: Fri, 29 Aug 2008 3:04 pm
Subject: [CAUT] Tonmeister, baccalaureate degrees, etc.



Greetings, Colleagues -

 

When I was working at SUNY Fredonia School of Music, 'til '95, they had a very good program in sound recording technology.  It was highly regarded and had very high entrance requirements.  Some of our best musicians were in this Tonmeister program, which was a baccalaureate degree with all the usual core requirements of other music major programs.

 

Yes, Prof. Owen Jorgensen developed a baccalaureate program in piano technology at Michigan State University, College of Music. That ran from the early '70s until he retired in the early '90s.  I was privileged to be a guinea pig in his developing program in the late '60s.  The degree program also had the same core requirements as all the other music majors.  I returned as a guest lecturer in some of the classes during and after my graduate studies (in musicology: organology).  The program was excellent, and a few of our most esteemed colleagues came from it.  However, it suffered from one defect in its concept:  Eig
hteen-year-olds almost never enter college with dreams of becoming a piano technician!

 

When I lectured in the program, in the late '70s, early '80s, we had an interesting mix of students.  Many of the students already had music degrees, even graduate degrees.  And some came from other walks of life; I even had one student who was a physician (M.D.)!  But we had relatively few students who entered - and stuck with - the program through its four-year degree curriculum. [ I think this must have been an important consideration when MSU decided to retire the program along with Jorgensen, its founder.]  I always felt the program would "work" better if approached as a master's degree curriculum, along the lines of how Library Science is presented.  Prerequisite would probably be an undergrad music degree, or liberal arts degree with music emphasis.  I hope someone picks up this ball and runs with it!

 

~ Tom McNeil ~
Vermont Piano Restorations
VermontPiano.com

346 Camp Street
Barre, VT 05641
(802) 476-7072 
 


In a message dated 8/28/2008 7:28:35 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, jim_busby at byu.edu writes:



Thanks Alan. 

 

Hey Ric, any help on this?

 

Jim

 


From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of reggaepass at aol.com
Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2008 12:58 PM
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Degrees in Piano Technology?


 

Jim, 


 



You might want to at least take a look at what is requir
ed to become a "tonemeister" (our closest equivalent would be a well musically educated recording technician) in Germany.  Ed suggested looking at recording technicians programs here in the states, which is a good idea, but those may not be high-powered enough on the music education side of the equation for a B. A.



 



Alan Eder


-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Busby <jim_busby at byu.edu>
To: poppyspys at yahoo.com <poppyspys at yahoo.com>; College and University Technicians <caut at ptg.org>
Sent: Wed, 27 Aug 2008 11:22 am
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Degrees in Piano Technology?




Thanks,



 



But… there are no “degrees”? Anywhere? Does anyone know if U. of Western Ontario offers a degree? I couldn’t get that out of their website.



 



If anyone should be given the right to give a college degree it would be NBSS.  They are fantastic! Many other programs are very good too, but as someone pointed out to me, anyone can offer a “certificate” but if an actual accredited University has a degree if has a lot more weight with academia. (Not my words…)



 



I understand that Owen Jorgensen had a degree offered where he was. Does anyone know?



 



I’m being pressed by a new University to pursue this but want to find a precedent, if one exits. It’s always harder to “reinvent the wheel”.



 



Thanks,



Jim



 








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