<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><BR><DIV><DIV>On Oct 22, 2007, at 7:50 PM, Fred Sturm wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; ">Is "concert tuning and prep" a significant part of the workload? It sure is where I work. I'd put it at over 20% of my load. Even if it were only the 2% Jeff Tanner claims, it would be by far the most important 2%. It is where the department shows itself to the world. It is where the students and faculty show what they can do. It is extraordinarily important. If you don't believe that, you have no business working for a music department.</SPAN></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR><DIV>Yes, it is important. But I think we as technicians might over value that importance because it is an area we take a lot of pride in - because it is the only part of our work that IS visible. I haven't said it right yet. But it is still a fraction of the job. And yes it is more than 2% of the workload (though nothing like 20% here until late in the semester), but the concert instruments only represent 2% of my inventory. It might be 20% of your workload because you are half time. But perhaps 5% of my time is spent in the recital hall until after the mid point of the fall semester. It gets busier after that, but I'm only granted an hour a day in there, so it can't get to 20% of a full workday even if I need the entire hour every day.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>There is so much more to CAUT work that is more like being an assembly line worker. A good CAUT candidate might not be the best concert tuner, but be better suited to the overall job than a good concert tuner because of the nature of the rest of the work. I think we like to think it is more important because our concert skills have been touted. But I submit in reality, that importance is over exaggerated.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>If one can pass the RPT exam at CTE level, I would wager he or she would get no complaints on their concert tuning from anyone in the majority of university settings, especially if the unisons and stability scores are high. I think most university faculties would be quite satisfied with the concert work of a technician with those types of tuning scores, a very high score on the grand regulation portion of the technical exam and a good dose of confidence, if they were a really good manager of the rest of the work. Sure we'd like to create this ideal super technician. But that just isn't based in reality.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Granted, as I have said before, many of you on this list work for upper echelon music departments where a bit higher standard might be required, and it might be more predictable what the needs would be from institution to institution at that level. And that is probably part of why some of you interpret my words as an endorsement for mediocrity. That isn't at all my position. But I submit it is difficult for those who work at conservatories and better music departments to be able to relate to what the average music department needs in a piano technician. Even here (we have a respectable school, I think, but not conservatory level), because we have newer instruments, it is difficult for me to relate to the needs of a department with a lot of old pianos. When I was hired, we didn't particularly need a technician who could redesign actions or recap bridges, and still don't. And much of what has come to be needed in the meantime has been learned on the job. Little of that could have been taught in a class or evaluated in a skills exam.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Each institution will need a different kind of technician with different kinds of skills based on their inventory. I just think creating a one size fits all CAUT endorsement exam will be counter productive because we just can't evaluate the varying needs of every institution in an exam that can be given in a few hours. And it doesn't make sense to me to set the bar so high that only a handful of positions around the country would really benefit from the skill set identified in an exam. If we are going to do anything at all, it seems to me we need to be identifying technicians who have the basic skill sets to manage most collegiate piano inventories - not just for the New England Conservatory positions announcements that come open every 20 years.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>And I think it is possible that may be mostly traits that just aren't testable.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BR><BR><DIV> <SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><DIV>Jeff Tanner, RPT</DIV><DIV>University of South Carolina</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"></SPAN> </DIV><BR></BODY></HTML>