Ryan, your remarks below are the heart of the RPT Tuning test issue (aural vs ETD). Thank you for taking the time to pen & email your thoughts. Best Regards... see you at KC... Bill Fritz, StLouis From: Ryan Sowers <tunerryan at gmail.com> To: pianotech at ptg.org Subject: Re: [pianotech] [Pianotek] the big discussion Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2011 18:57:45 -0800 This is actually a very good point, one that has been on my mind the past few days. Candidate #1: An ETD user who has very solid tuning pin technique, knows a few aural checks for octaves, and has learned to tune very clean unisons. He takes the tuning exam and scores 60% on part one due to the aural tuning requirement. He/she goes on to tune part 2, retunes the midrange and finishes the piano with a score of 98%. He/she then goes on to score 100% on stability and unisons. The examiners note that the unisons are generally within 1/2 a cent and compliment the examinee on this. Let's assume that candidate #1 passed his technical exam with flying colors. Candidate #2: An aural tuner. Fails pitch the first time because their fork is not calibrated. Tunes the midrange with a score of 80%. Since the pitch is remeasured after the midrange, He/she manages to pass pitch on the second try. Then they take part 2, and barely pass. They score 80 percent on unisons and stability. Most of the unisons are 1/2 cent to almost 1 cent off so these don't detract from the score. But 10 of the notes are almost 2 cents (almost half a beat!)off leading to the 80% score. Let's assume Candidate 2 barely passes the technical exam as well. Candidate #1 will not be able to upgrade to RPT status, despite the fact that his technical exam score was superior, AND his unison and tuning stability were significantly superior to candidate #1. Candidate #2 who passed by the skin of his/her teeth now gets to upgrade membership and feel superior to Candidate #2 who will remain an associate. They put the RPT logo on their website and describe how they have passed a serious of "rigorous exams" proving that they are a high-quality technician. Now to make it even MORE interesting, imagine that candidate #1 has really gotten into voicing. He/she has taken many classes, has invested in high-quality tools, has developed effective protocols, and has pleased a number of discriminating clients in his/her community. Candidate #2 doesn't even own any voicing tools, and doesn't practice the skill because most of his/her clients "don't know the difference anyways". Its pretty obvious who the better technician is, but that is not the one who gains the RPT status. This IS the reality of the current testing situation. The reality is that the RPT designation is not designed to require examinees to have super clean unisons. Also the stability test has a flaw that pretty much insures a 100% score if the examinee knows how to exploit it. The RPT is more like a "mini-liberal arts degree" in piano technology. It shows that the technician has a somewhat well-rounded set of knowledge and skills. And that's about it. As much as I LOVE aural tuning, and promote it and think that it is important, I think the RPT tuning exam is a far cry from being the high standard that some promote it as. Heck, as long as you can tune most of your unisons within a one cent tolerance, you can become a CTE. Ry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20110202/a88a4a78/attachment.htm>
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