[pianotech] Counts .......Duaine

[William Monroe]

OMG!!  Thanks, Will.  I laughed out loud - and I rarely do so.  Susan is
going above and beyond here, exhibiting more class and patience than I think
my sorry soul is capable of.  Susan, what an exhibition of patience and
caring about others.  Well done.

William R. Monroe



On Sat, Jan 29, 2011 at 4:09 AM, Encore Pianos
<encorepianos at metrocast.net>wrote:

> I nominate Susan for the Barney Frank “Arguing with a dining room table”
> award.
>
>
>
> Will
>
>
>
> *From:* pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] *On
> Behalf Of *Susan Kline
> *Sent:* Saturday, January 29, 2011 3:17 AM
> *To:* pianotech at ptg.org
> *Subject:* Re: [pianotech] Counts .......Duaine
>
>
>
> On 1/28/2011 10:58 PM, Duaine Hechler wrote:
>
> Oh contrariwise, I'm trying to convince those stubborn persons that a
>
> person can be a - real - professional - money earning - ETD tuner
>
> without needing to learn traditional aural tuning - except for some
>
> fundamental and final routine checks.
>
>
> It's possible that you can be one --- there are lots of people like
> that out there, who just get the machine and hang out their shingle.
>
> What isn't possible is to be a GOOD one. Everyone here has said the
> same thing over and over: the ETD tuning quality is limited unless you
> have the aural capacity to see whether or not the machine is giving
> you what it should. There are many circumstances where what the
> ETD tells you has to be adjusted for the particular piano you
> are tuning.
>
> Dean Rayburn himself got quoted to you, saying that very thing.
>
> You keep repeating the mantra that an ETD tuning is equal in
> quality to the best aural tuning, while omitting the crucial
> qualifier that the person using the ETD has to be able to check
> the results aurally and adjust the tuning when needed.
>
> What you say about attending Jim Coleman, Sr.'s aural tuning
> class and not being able to hear what he showed you is not
> encouraging, for sure, but it isn't the final word, either.
> Some people start out unable to hear these things, and then
> they have a breakthrough, sometimes quite soon, and move on
> from there just fine. Others just won't give up, and study
> carefully (and humbly) till it all comes right and they master
> what they have decided they want to learn. Some people fall into
> it like a duck to water, either because they have the knack
> or because they have such a strong background in music (like
> me) so that listening in a certain way is second nature. Of
> course someone who has studied a form of music requiring strong
> pitch control, like a stringed instrument, for 15 years, who
> then played professionally and taught the instrument for
> another six, is going to pick up tuning skills quickly.
> It's not that I didn't need to work on aural tuning, it's that
> most of the work had already been done before I started
> studying it, just another way.
>
> I've known other fine piano technicians who were oboists,
> played the French Horn, or majored in piano.
>
> It seems to me that you have some choices to make. You can
> lay aside your deep sense of personal injury -- no one here
> set out to make you fail, or even wants you to fail. Once
> you have defused the strong emotional burden you are laying
> on the topic of aural tuning, you can try, with help from
> others, and see how far you can get. You may think it is
> more impossible for you than it really is.
>
> On the other hand, while almost everyone who really wants
> to learn it somehow manages, you might be in the small minority
> who truly CAN'T get it. Until you give up the panic and
> stop blaming everyone except yourself for your predicament,
> you won't be able to find that out. Is it really a fate
> you cannot face if you truly can't learn aural tuning?
> You still have choices, even if you have tried hard and
> failed. (So far, as far as I can tell, you have tried, but
> not hard, and failed, and then had a double-dyed snit.)
>
> What kind of future is open to a piano tuner who can tune, but
> not very well? Plenty of options. Tune in places where no one
> is tuning at all, on pianos which are not going to sound very
> good no matter who tunes them ... you seem already to be doing
> that. Work on pianos instead of only tuning them. You seem to
> be doing that. Work in an affiliated field, like player
> technology. And you are doing that. Work on unusual pianos
> or other musical instruments, which no one else is working on,
> or at least almost no one else. And you seem to be doing that.
>
> The trick is to infuse quality into everything you do, whatever
> its nature. I have no way of knowing whether your player piano
> or pump organ rebuilding rises to that challenge, but I hope it
> does. Everyone needs to have SOMETHING going for them! The unadorned
> ETD tuning is not going to achieve quality, so that makes it
> doubly important that everything else you do contain it.
>
> So what is your problem? Why try to convince everyone on the
> list to accept something which they frankly know to be false
> (that a good ETD tuner doesn't need to master aural tuning),
> even when your opinion is contradicted over and over again,
> by EVERYONE who responds, whatever kind of tuner they are?
> You are not going to get the piano tech world to agree with
> you, but you assuredly will mess up your own reputation with
> them, as you certainly are doing. Look at their responses
> to you. They say it nicely, then they say it nicely again,
> then they say it firmly, then when you attack
> them vigorously for not giving in to your wishes, they
> ridicule you out of sheer frustration. It's not for love
> of laughing at you, it's frustration because you won't
> listen to what they say to you. Calling them names is not
> going to get you anywhere.
>
> Learn aural tuning or don't learn it -- but I feel you
> really need to give give up trying to convince everyone
> here that they are wrong about its value while you
> (and ONLY you) are right about its worthlessness.
> You are doing yourself an injury going on and on
> about that, when all the people you are scolding
> know THROUGH THEIR OWN DIRECT EXPERIENCE that you
> are mistaken.
>
> If I'm writing you at such length, it's because it is
> distressing to watch someone shaming himself in public,
> out of sheer obstinacy.
>
> Susan Kline
>
>
>
>
>
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