indeed the title Klavierbauer is misleading, regardless of Geselle or Master degree. I am Klavierbauergeselle but I feel as piano technician. I have no idea to construct or build a new piano or design a scale or to build a new soundboard. All I can do is to completely rebuild a piano: repairing the soundboard, restringing, new hammers, bridge, pinblock and dampers and so on. On the other hand: with a master degree one could be able to construct and build a piano, depending also on his personally skills. But this is not what is demanded in the examination. As Bernhard mentioned: to get the master degree you have to make a 3.5 years apprenticeship and then work for 5 years to be entitled to attend the master school for one year. Everybody with that master degree has my maximum respect. It is not easy to get and garantees very high skills! The tilte Klavierbauer is misleading due to historic reasons: the apprenticeship can be done in a factory or in a rebuilding workshop, but the exam is the same. Both kind of apprentices attend the Klavierbauer school in Ludwigsburg for 3 month each year, besides of learning in the workshop or factory. Working in the factory means that you really build pianos or at least you are involved in building pianos. Learning in a workshop means to rebuild only. 3.5 years of fulltime learning including attending the school should be enough to learn the most essential things. Even if it is misleading: I am happy to call myself "piano maker (Klavierbauer)" because it is better marketing than "piano technician". If here in Germany someone is called piano technician it means that he has not the Klavierbauer title. Everybody may call himself piano technician, but the use of the term Klavierbauer is limited to those who made the apprenticeship. Gregor > Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2007 22:58:17 +0100> From: ricb at pianostemmer.no> To: pianotech at ptg.org> Subject: Overseas employment> > I would be very interested to hear from any of our German or central > European readers if the below statement is correct. There are a very > few here in Norway who declare themselves to be BKD certified > <<Klavierbaur>> and indeed translate this to mean Piano Builders / > Makers. None of these are Meisters and none of them could even begin to > really build a piano. This fact has been a moment of irritation for more > then a few... especially those who actually do have some significant > rebuilding skills but have not been through any german factory > training. If the correct translation is Piano Builder Helper... or more > likely Piano Technician.... then it seems to me they should be required > to represent their certification more in accordance with what it > actually is. If their diploma actually does on the other hand simply > state Klavierbaur... I would submit the term is entirely misleading. > These fellows have no idea of how to scale a piano, how to install a > soundboard, rarely how to measure and notch a bridge.... indeed most of > them seem to have little or no real experience with grands. I mean what > can you expect in three years of apprenticeship in a factory situation > where you are first and formost required to be able to contribute to the > production line enough to justify your presence there. Heck... tuning > alone requires the better part of one years work.> > A bit of clarification would be greatly appreciated.> > Cheers> RicB> > > What you probably mean as the lower degree "Klavierbauer" is a shortcut> of the degree "Klavierbauergeselle" what means literarilly> "piano builder helper", and is the first degree after apprentice.> The use of the title Klavierbauer, implies that you have the master> title in germany.> _________________________________________________________________ Connect to the next generation of MSN Messenger http://imagine-msn.com/messenger/launch80/default.aspx?locale=en-us&source=wlmailtagline -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20070919/e77b50ec/attachment-0001.html
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