Teaching son

[Marcel Carey]

The way my father thaught me was to just go with him and watch and listen
for a day or two. Then he would do the temperament and let me do octaves for
just a short while, then he would take over. Gradually, I was thaught to
tune the whole piano. As someone said earlier, the untrained ear get tired
very fast. So I think for the first months, you should be with him and
switch places at the tuning hammer. After that, you can let him work by
himself ( drop him off and introduce him to a customer, go tune a piano),
come back to check his work and constructively criticize him while retuning
the piano so he can realize that youre not bluffing. This way, his
confidence will grow with his skills. You're in for a real treat. Not only
teaching will improve your relationship with your son, but also it will make
you a better tuner since you will have a lot of explaining to do. You will
make sure that your tunings are also spotless.

Good luck,

Marcel
Marcel Carey, RPT, accordeur Technicien
Rock Forest  QC
(819) 564-0447
----- Original Message -----
From: Daniel Jackson <tunemwell@rcn.com>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Tuesday, July 25, 2000 12:03 PM
Subject: Re: Teaching son


> Jon Page wrote:
> >
> > At 07:18 PM 07/24/2000 -0700, you wrote:
> >
> >      Help,
> >      I may be totally crazy, but my 21 year old son has expressed
> >      a desire to
> >      work in my store/shop and become a piano technician. (And I
> >      am seriously
> >      considering it!)
>   Jon - you're a piano tech - I think that certifies you
> already..grin..
>
> >      My thought is to have him spend 3 months tuning nothing but
> >      unisons
> >      before advancing on to the simpler intervals.
>
> I can't think of a more sure way to drive a 21 year old away from
> learning to tune. Would you want to just tune unisons for 3 months?
> (aside from the other tech work)
>
>   I would only take him on this endeavor if he were willing to
> >      really do
> >      the work and I would expect him to be able to handle some of
> >      the outside
> >      tunings in 6 months.
> >
> All of this is fine as long as you are flexible as to his response to
> your idea of the learning curve. He will learn at his own rate of speed,
> not yours. I think 6 months is a pretty intense and tough goal to make -
> not impossible - but do you think you were tuning well in 6 months? I
> have a hard time believing anyone could do more than a somewhat
> satifactory job after 6 months.
> You need to arrive at a mutual decision as to how to procede...then
> you have a chance of success.
> Best of luck - I only hope my son (now 11) will have a desire to learn
> any of the skills I have worked so long to achieve.
> Dan J in Wmbg
> >
> >
> .
>
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>