[CAUT] Piano juries on concert instruments

[Fred Sturm]

On Jan 2, 2010, at 12:13 PM, Jeff Tanner wrote:

> Wouldn't you rather that your salary and working conditions were  
> managed by someone who understands the concepts behind maintenance,  
> what is actually necessary for the inventory and knows what the  
> market is for your skill?


	Does such an individual exist? I guess it might be wonderful to work  
for such a god-like creature, but I'm not going to hold my breath  
waiting to find one. I figure I am the only person in the entire  
university system who has even a partial understanding of my job.
	The concept of maintenance may be understood by folks in physical  
plant, for instance, but not in a way that pertains to pianos at a  
university. Their approach would probably be to quantify and set up a  
regular schedule for tuning and basic defined maintenance for each  
piano, but in my experience the needs of the various instruments in  
different venues and levels of use are wildly different from one  
another, so that model would never work well. How could they figure  
out the different needs of the concert hall instrument compared to the  
musicology prof's, for instance? They could only figure it out if  
somebody who knew the difference told them. Who would that somebody  
be? [And their approach would also be to put it out to bid, and they  
would have no idea how to select a competent technician.]
	In fact, we have to be that ideal person ourselves, and communicate  
the pertinent facts to "the person in charge," whoever that may be.  
The pertinent facts include our skill level and the the market value  
thereof, as well as the needs and possibilities for levels of service.
Regards,
Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico
fssturm at unm.edu