<div> Israel,<br>
<br>
<font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">OK.<br>
<br>
Excellent analysis and explanation of the situation.<br>
<br>
I guess I should have put a smiley face after my closing quip or something (although my basic premise stands). Just for the record, let me say that I value and appreciate the work you guys are putting into developing the CAUT test and am well-acquainted with the harsh realities of CAUT work (and have the scars to prove it!). <br>
<br>
I hope you were using the occasion of responding to my post to make some general points, because I am on your side, pardner.<br>
<br>
Alan<br>
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-----Original Message-----<br>
From: Israel Stein <custos3@comcast.net><br>
To: caut@ptg.org<br>
Sent: Sun, 28 Oct 2007 8:04 am<br>
Subject: [CAUT] CAUT Testing Model<br>
<br>
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At 06:54 AM 10/27/2007, <a href="mailto:caut-request@ptg.org">caut-request@ptg.org</a> wrote: <br>
>Fred, <br>
> <br>
>Good sounding, solid unisons are of the utmost importance. However,
>I question the implications of testing people under severe time
>constraints and poor working conditions. Sure, if one is going to
>do the concert tuning thing out in the big bad world, these WILL be
>the conditions at times. But as CAUT-erizers, doesn't it send the
>wrong message to suggest that these conditions are acceptable on an
>ongoing basis? I think that runs the risk of casting ourselves as
>people willing to be insufficiently supported in the pursuit of our
>professional goals. How do we expect to be better compensated if we
>are willing to accept not-good-enough working conditions as an
>acceptable standard? Raise your hand if your goal is to become the
>piano technician equivalent of the American Tourister suitcase being
>thrashed by a gorilla in commercials from days gone by. <br>
> <br>
>Alan Eder <br>
<br>
Alan, <br>
<br>
There are few fussier or more meticulous technicians than Bill
Garlick - the former Director of the North Bennet School in Boston
(he actually built up its reputation for quality training) and
formerly Director of Technical services at Steinway. Yet in his time
at the school he used to teach the students how to do a
"quick-and-dirty" regulation - in situations where there simply isn't
time to do a regulation the way it ought to be done ideally. Those
situations occur, and will occur in all kinds of contexts - and not
only at educational institutions. A well-trained technician has to be
able to operate in many modes - the no-effort-spared-for-quality mode
when the conditions allow, and the
do-the-best-job-you-can-under-the-circumstances mode when the
conditions require. They are not mutually exclusive. A good CAUT tech
has to have the skill and the judgment to jump into situations that
require triage and do what can be done - without damaging the
instrument or compromising the possibility of future improvements. <br>
<br>
While understaffing is often the cause of stressful work conditions,
it is not the only cause. In my experience, a more prevalent cause of
having to do hurry-up rush work is the overbooking of facilities and
the lack of access to instruments that require attention. Often you
cannot take an instrument out of service for a really thorough job -
yet a faculty member demands that something be done. So you do the
work on a catch-as-catch can basis. And you need to know where and
when to compromise - and when never to do so. <br>
<br>
I believe that in his message Fred Sturm has expressed this last
concept (that some things must never be compromised) with regard to
tuning by insisting that unisons must be tested at the tightest
possible tolerance - with which I wholeheartedly agree. And I would
add tuning stability to that. The same concept applies to repairs and
regulation. Some things you can skip if you must, some things you can
postpone and some things you must get done no matter what. The
ability to make those judgements and work in that mode is what at
least part of any CAUT exam must deal with. And your methodology has
to be able to get to the core of the most pressing problems - and not
be stuck on a given sequence of steps whether or not they are
productive or make much difference (at least in the case of
regulation). And yes, some of the CAUT exam must deal with
higher-order skills. And the whole thing should not take a week to
administer. It is a difficult, complicated task to create such a
test, and there has been a lot of very good feedback on this list as
to how to go about it - from all sides. <br>
<br>
You never know when a hall will get overscheduled, a rehearsal run
overtime, a professor preempt a classroom for whatever reason or
demand that something be taken care of yesterday. Or when a new
nincompoop administrator will create conditions when all of the above
is done on a regular basis. We will always have situations when you
have to tune with a brass quintet rehearsing way too close for
comfort - and the job has to get done now. And even if you do manage
to develop some sort of safeguards and guarantees as to working
conditions - they are ephemeral. My predecessors at SFSU developed
all kinds of very good policies about scheduling and work practices -
and a new Director just swept them all away last year. Now we are
back to where things are saner again through a lot of hard work by me
and the other tech here - and this new guy has one foot out the door.
Who knows what the future will bring... We are not a union, we never
will be, and staffing levels and working conditions will never be
guaranteed by binding contract. Hell, if nurses can't get adequate
staffing levels through legislation and union contracts - how are we
going to? All we can do is get into colleges and universities,
develop some respect for ourselves by doing the job that needs to be
done under whatever conditions we have to deal with, and influence
the powers-that-be to improve what can be improved once we gain their
respect. We can't do it by publishing guidelines and complaining to
each other about why the faculties and the administrations "out
there" are so stupid as to not rush out and adopt them... <br>
<br>
The point I am trying to make is that even though we work in
Academia, we cannot shut ourselves in the ivory tower of
perfectionism and aim our credentials at what amounts to ideal
conditions. If we are going to issue credentials to people who cannot
operate under real-world conditions, don't expect our credentials to
gain much weight or our recommendations to have much clout. We work
in the trenches of the performing arts, we will always work in the
trenches (in the performing arts there are a few prima-donnas at the
top and the rest of the supporting cast - including us - cannot
afford to be seen as prima-donnas) and our credential for such work
should acknowledge this reality. At least a part of the exam should
deal with operating under stress and doing the sort of triage that we
will inevitably be called upon to do in our work. <br>
<br>
Israel Stein <br>
<br>
<br>
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