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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Well, if you need something to keep you
busy.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Some of you old-timers may remember when I was on
staff at Illinois Wesleyan. When I started there I had been a tech for 8
years and was one of those "home" tuners. Yet, I got the call and was
told, "I hear you're the only game in town." I started out on a
contract. When I handed the director of music and piano faculty the
Guidelines, the director's response was that it was a self-serving piece of
propaganda. He wanted to know what other similar schools were
doing. Well, that wasn't going to work, was it? To sell IWU's
school of music on a full time position (90 instruments) I had to write
reports using "IWU's" numbers and data, explaining what in meant in terms for
"IWU." After 5 years and umpteen reports later, the position was made full
time and the rebuilding and piano purchasing plans were approved. I was
there one semester with full benefits and then my husband accepted that job in
Texas....</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Anyway, the point is, they didn't give a you know
what about my qualifications (RPT, assistant to God, whatever). What
counted was the work I did and that I could explain in terms that they
would understand how they would benefit from the proposals I
made.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>If it were up to me, which it is not, I'd
concentrate on upgrading skills and finding ways for individual techs to
communicate with their faculty and administration (including making
reports & proposals specific to one's institution). </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>BTW, I know the story behind a former job ad
from a major institution. A faculty member, or some faculty members wanted
a certain technician, but according to law, they had to advertise. So,
they wrote the qualifications to match that certain technician--RPT, Bachelor of
Music, Master of Music. It turned out that the "wanted" technician found
something else he wanted more, the surprise was there was another tech out
there interested in the job that had those qualifications. What I do know,
is that when a professor from that major institution came to visit at IWU, he
told one of my faculty that he wished they had pianos like ours at his
school.... I was sort of surprised because I was wrestling with mid 70's
S&Ss. It's crazy out there...</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Man, I've got to get to work.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Barbara Richmond, RPT</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>near Peoria, Illinois</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=fssturm@unm.edu href="mailto:fssturm@unm.edu">Fred Sturm</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=caut@ptg.org
href="mailto:caut@ptg.org">College and University Technicians</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Friday, October 12, 2007 8:19
AM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> [CAUT] CAUT Endorsement (was Re:
Job Opening, U. of Michigan,Ann Arbor)</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV>On Oct 9, 2007, at 7:40 PM, David Ilvedson wrote:</DIV><BR
class=Apple-interchange-newline>
<BLOCKQUOTE type="cite">
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 12px Helvetica" face=Helvetica
size=3>Most of the school listings I see, would prefer PTG membership and
RPT status. <SPAN class=Apple-converted-space> </SPAN>Would new
listings start including RPT and CAUT status preferred or possibly you think
the RPT status can be eliminated as it has no meaning? <SPAN
class=Apple-converted-space> </SPAN>I don't see the need for another
"credential". <SPAN class=Apple-converted-space> </SPAN>Would the CAUT
credential we much harder to achieve? <SPAN
class=Apple-converted-space> </SPAN>i.e. a "real" test.<SPAN
class=Apple-converted-space> </SPAN>Would existing College techs be
grandfathered in?<SPAN class=Apple-converted-space> </SPAN>Besides,
it's easy to talk about it...I know all the stuff concerned with RPT status
was years in the making and a huge amount of work...and the
politics...YIKES...who's going to take that job on? <SPAN
class=Apple-converted-space> </SPAN>Are you guys crazy?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 14px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 12px Helvetica" face=Helvetica
size=3>David Ilvedson, RPT</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 12px Helvetica" face=Helvetica
size=3>Pacifica, CA<SPAN class=Apple-converted-space>
</SPAN>94044</FONT></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR>
<DIV><SPAN class=Apple-tab-span style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"></SPAN>Are we crazy?
Yep, you got that right. I guess we can pretend to be "crazy like a fox," but
your assessment of how difficult this will be is spot on. </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=Apple-tab-span style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"></SPAN>So the first
question to answer is "Why?" I guess it would be accurate to say that this
notion grew out of a desire to market "something" to the higher education
community. [BTW, this is perhaps the most easily targeted market PTG has to go
after, with 1500 - 2000 easily identified individual music departments]. We
all know that most music departments are under-staffed, under-served,
generally in a mess when it comes to piano condition and maintenance. We,
followers of Don Quixote that we are (at least this is true of me
personally), want to do something about this, for all sorts of idealistic
reasons, and perhaps from some self-serving motives as well. </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=Apple-tab-span style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"></SPAN>What to do?
Well, we want to tell music departments how to take care of their piano
situations, which is an awfully complex thing to try to do. The Guidelines was
a first step. One possible second step is to try to tell them who they should
hire. Hmm, tell them to hire RPTs? Would that work? We came to the conclusion
it wouldn't. Obviously a caut needs a lot beyond RPT. I think we all remember
starting work as a caut and feeling simply overwhelmed, confused, and out of
our league - well, true for me, anyway, and a lot of others have said the
same. So we really don't feel comfortable recommending they hire a green RPT,
or even a well-seasoned one. 25 years of home service really don't prepare you
for caut-dom much better than 2 or 3 years.</DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=Apple-tab-span style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"></SPAN>So if we want
to market members of PTG to music departments, we need to have some way of
identifying people who have something like the chops and knowledge needed. (At
the same time, we need to begin to provide the training needed; hence our
development of caut classes at national and occasionally regional
conventions). And we've been chewing over where to go with that for a few
years now. It happens that the current PTG board is, led by President Dale
Probst, is strongly in favor of us getting to work and making something
happen. In fact, we have been instructed to have something concrete for the
mid-year board meeting this winter, and to have it include skills testing,
written testing, and something curricular. Talk about ambitious! The general
notion is that this will be called a "CAUT Endorsement" on top of RPT, with
the possibility that other "Endorsements" might follow, as, for instance, in
rebuilding.</DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=Apple-tab-span style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"></SPAN>To give a
concrete example of where this may be heading, the skills testing
sub-committee, consisting for now of Don McKechnie, Ken Eschete and myself,
has developed the concept of a caut tuning test. I'll quote here from our
working document:</DIV>
<P class=MsoNormal
style="mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none"><SPAN>"Our consensus
is that we should test for the skill level appropriate for a concert tuner.
What does this mean? In simplest terms:<O:P></O:P></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal
style="mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none"><SPAN>1) Concert
tuners stretch octaves quite a bit (even to the extreme), doing so in a very
consistent way, demonstrating complete control. <O:P></O:P></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal
style="mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none"><SPAN>2) They can
tune extremely stable unisons that are absolutely pure with all three strings
sounding. <O:P></O:P></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal
style="mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none"><SPAN>3) They can
produce a concert tuning efficiently and rapidly, generally in less than an
hour (assuming a reasonable starting point).<O:P></O:P></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal
style="mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none"><SPAN><SPAN
style="mso-tab-count: 1">
"</SPAN>In addition, we believe that we should focus on the concrete ability
of being able to produce a full, quality tuning in conditions as close to real
life as possible. Does the candidate actually have the chops to complete a
full tuning and meet these criteria? That is the question we want to answer
before we can tell academia that this person is
capable."<O:P></O:P></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal
style="mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none"><SPAN
class=Apple-tab-span style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"></SPAN>With that as the premise
for a tuning test, our initial design is as follows: </P>
<P class=MsoNormal
style="mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none"><SPAN><SPAN
style="mso-tab-count: 1"><FONT class=Apple-style-span size=4><SPAN
class=Apple-style-span style="FONT-SIZE: 16px">
</SPAN><FONT class=Apple-style-span size=3><SPAN
class=Apple-style-span
style="FONT-SIZE: 12px"> "</SPAN></FONT></FONT></SPAN>The candidate will
tune a concert piano (7' to 9'), complete, with a time limit of 90 minutes at
a maximum. The piano will then be checked for adequate and consistent stretch,
stability, and unisons." </SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal
style="mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none"><SPAN
class=Apple-tab-span style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"></SPAN>The stretch component is
a little complex to describe here, but it involves measuring enough partials
of enough notes to examine 4:1 and 8:1 matches over the top and bottom octave
or so of the piano, flagging inconsistencies, and aurally verifying them. (It
involves Excel spreadsheet, and if anyone with knowledge and experience in
Excel would like to volunteer to help, we'd love to have some assistance). The
unisons/stability component involves pounding/slamming the piano (all notes)
in some way, and then checking unisons. Samples of "suspect" (or obvious)
unison deficiencies would be flagged aurally, and then measured. The
working notion is that the spread of pitch within notes of a unison should be
within 0.5 cents, though that would have to be beta-tested.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal
style="mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none"><SPAN
class=Apple-tab-span style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"></SPAN>So there you have at
least a taste of what we are up to. Hey, it keeps us busy and out of other
trouble <G>.</P>
<DIV><BR>
<DIV>
<DIV>Regards,</DIV>
<DIV>Fred Sturm</DIV>
<DIV>University of New Mexico</DIV>
<DIV><A href="mailto:fssturm@unm.edu">fssturm@unm.edu</A></DIV>
<DIV><BR class=khtml-block-placeholder></DIV></DIV><BR></DIV>
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