[CAUT] teaching piano tuning

[Dorothy Bell]

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Dear Friends,

I don't know a lot about technical colleges or community colleges, but I do know a lot about 4-year colleges and universities. Yesterday I spend some time starting to design a Bachelor of Sci/Arts program that I thought I could get through a faculty committee.

Here it is:
    Joint program between Physics Department and Music Department (requiring a vigorous liaison faculty member from each department) 
        Of the sixteen semester courses required for graduation,
             the following five courses and one practicum are required:
                Physics, Introduction for Majors (with lab)
                Physics, Mechanics (with lab)
                Physics, Acoustics (with lab)
                Music, Elementary Theory
                Music, Literature of the Keyboard Instrument (two semesters)
                Piano Technician Program , practicum, (five semesters)
            in addition, three courses chosen from the following:
                Music, Orchestral Literature
                Music, Chamber Literature
                Physics, Advanced Mechanics
                Chemistry, Introduction for General Science Majors
                Applied Mathematics
                Business, Introduction for Non-Majors
            In addition, eight courses to meet college distribution requirements and desired electives.

So I finished with this and thought, I don't know all this stuff, I don't think I need it in my piano buriness, but it would make a great major for the two or three people in the US (world) who are interested. It would be hard to push through the college because it would be tremendously expensive (small courses, specialized instructors, lots of space requirements), but I think that it is a viable academic program.

But to get real, I don't think that the college level is the place for piano tech as we now do it. We don't say things like, "In a study of four different voicing techniques carried out on pianos otherwise identical, it was found that . . . " unless we are Jim Ellis or some other thinker of that ilk. We often say, "I tried such and so and it worked pretty well." That's not the sort of experimental level that would fly for a four-year major, in my opinion.
    
But the tech college or community college might be a place for a more applied program. My own piano training was at a trade school, so I'd be curious to know what people from the community colleges think. (This same argument has been going on for years concerning nursing programs: theory or practical? Two-year or four-year or trade? It's a continual discussion with, unfortunately, a lot of potential for hurt feelings.)

So there you have it, pie in the sky from

Dorrie Bell
Boston, MA
            
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