<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> </head> <body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"> Ah, a post what puts a finger closer to the core of the present tangent to this debate.  It has been amazing to see how so many have dodged around the more holistic pictures here to bang through individual points which regardless of their validity or not are rather meaningless in themselves.  We do need to keep it friendly tho .. :) The thing is... everyone knows certifications are no guarantee of brilliance, and everyone knows a formal education is not the only way to knowledge and skill. These facts in no way however can be turned upside down and inside out to mean that certifications and formal schooling are of no or little value. The fact is that certifications are valuable tools for evaluations purposes and they do provide goals or milestones to pursue.  They are not mandatory and do not represent a threat to anyone.  The fact is that formal education is a valuable tool for learning and gaining a basic knowledge base for future experience. It is also true both have their weaknesses, both can be abused, neither are a guarantee of anything in the end.  Nor is 35 years of "experience working in the branch" a guarantee of any quality level.  You can say the same about anything really.  These cannot be reduced to black and whites argumentations.  I say again.  Any CAUT certification worth its salt will have to be very demanding.  It should be, IMO, directed squarely at persons wishing to present themselves as capable of heading up a Department of Piano Technology at a large and demanding university.   If formed and used wisely such a certification can be a very useful tool in helping to attain the stated goals of improving salaries, respect for our field, and a greater understanding of just what it is we do and how important a role we play in a successful training program. I guarenfriggentee you that if such a certification existed, and if schools and universities started looking people holding them and were willing to up the ante to get them on their team... a bunch of those against would start pursuing the thing quite quickly... and most of the rest would quite happily find themselves job working as an assistant to such a person.... quite likely at a higher wage and benefits level then then have today. Cheers RicB <blockquote> This is just another variation on the "nature vs. nurture" debate that only the most simple-minded take an extreme position on. The world is full of very talented "musical" hamburger flippers, taxi drivers, hospital orderlies, bicycle messengers and - well - piano "tooners" who don't have the patience or the discipline or - frankly - the maturity to work their way through the formal training and the discipline that would give them the musical vocabulary and the technique to fully develop their talent, who never let their talent come under the influence of other creative and well-trained talents so that it talent can bloom - because they think that their talent is enough. These are called "underachievers" and tend to throw stones at the educational system they apparently did not know how to take advantage of... Then, of course, there are the talentless "tools" without a talented bone in their body who dutifully plod their way through conservatories and music departments for no reason but - perhaps - to make the institutions financially sustainable. So what? Rarely does anyone make it in music without either formal training - or someone with formal training behind them fixing the screw-ups... It's possible, it happens - but very rarely - that someone can make it on raw talent alone. So stick to your guns, David Israel Stein</blockquote> </body> </html>