>David: >........I understand that it is illegal for anyone in London >to lay a brick unless they are a professional, unionized brick layer. Hmm well, I'm not entirely sure about that, but I doubt it very much! >I get the idea that you are looking for validation that what you are >doing is OK. Well if it helps any, it's OK with me! Well thank you for that! It's not just that, entirely. As one who works in education, currently focussing on lifelong learning, I've lately been giving thought to the models of traning for, and operating, a career in piano tuning/servicing in the UK. The fact is that nowadays there is very little piano manufacturing in the UK. There is only the Kemble factory (part owned by Yamaha) left. No grand pianos at all are made in Britain, as far as I know. Furthermore, the number of workshops doing extensive rebuilding work is very small, so far as I'm aware. So there are very few opportunities to enter the trade via apprenticeships to a piano manufacturer or a restoration shop. That model of entering the profession/trade is all but gone in the UK. For those persons who *are* doing the extensive restoration work of the highest quality (like JD), there is not the scope to employ trainees. Wages cost too much. There remain two college courses, in Nottinghamshire and London. The Nottinghamshire one had a break with no intake last year but is back on offer now. Now, people are still buying and playing pianos in Britain but of course they are made elsewhere. What quantity of demand is there for new tuner technicians? Are the existing two college courses sufficient to meet the demand? I don't know, and am interested to find out. In a more general way, I think the question merits consideration too as to whether full-time-in-the-trade is really the only model of operation that can or should be considered valid. Is that the way things really work these days? Should it be? >Something that keeps a proper perspective is remembering that the >piano belongs to the CUSTOMER, not to me, and not to the ghost of an >imagined authoritarian looking over my shoulder. I am providing a >service to the CUSTOMER and the CUSTOMER decides if the service is >satisfactory, no one else. How is the customer best served, is certainly the question. >Send the boojums packing, David. Yes, the Snark is a Boojum, you see. But I don't know that I know how to send it packing....... I am sorry to bore you all with a load of UK stuff, when this is really a USA list, which you gracious American colleagues kindly allow us to benefit from! Thank you one and all for your most interesting contributions on this topic. Kind regards, David. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20090401/ac5411c8/attachment-0001.html>
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