Greetings to all,
Though about one or two people since I started posting on the CAUT list have accused me of writing without thinking, I have thought quite a lot about an open statement posted about me going on two months ago, and I intend to respond as it relates to the present effort to establish a CAUT certification by the CAUT committee. It is just an e-mail guys, not a letter to a publishing house.
First of all, I believe Eric Wolfley should have tenure and have already had a Sabbatical. He has taught here, and lectured at the symphony. I am happy for all his success as a piano technician in Cincinnati and abroad, and unhappy for his lack of it as it relates to this. However, I need to make some observations about the following conclusion he made recently that:
"I want to interject something here since Ben Sloane works for me here at CCM and tends to be rather verbose on topics he may or may not completely understand."
I believe I started encountering more scrutiny after this statement on the CAUT list.
First of all, I think a number of PTG members of the Cincinnati chapter wonder why I am still here. I am not from here. For the most part, Cincinnati technicians are aware that the best references from Eric Wolfley and Lawrence Becker, while I worked for them as a contractor at CCM, generally either were retained for themselves or given to Allen Wright and Nevin Essex among others, though they may correct me on this. I did get some good ones, I thought, however. Now that Lawrence resigned, and I took his position, this is not much of a question anymore. Why would I have put up with this?
I would give two reasons.
1. I bought a house
I had a pretty good opportunity or two to leave to a better employment situation as a piano technician. Unfinished housing projects prevented this.
2. It has taken a while for me to feel like a piano technician.
Somehow, I just didn't think it was my calling in life. My interest in CCM began with studying piano, not fixing pianos. So it seemed a reasonable state of affairs.
I wish to add however, on the subject of a CAUT Certification, that in my experience with Eric as his employee, there is, again, nothing to be gained by continuing education. This will result in no significant raises or more time off, i.e. for increasing education, at the institution he works for; the institution under his direction has proved that. Why would Eric then himself endorse the CAUT certification? It simply will not address the problems with employment for piano technicians at the institution he works for. And he thinks this will change things abroad? I am engaged to a woman who owns three houses in the tri-state area.
Moreover, Eric has, in spite of witnessing me obtain CTE level tuning exam scores, expressed vehement objection to both my tuning and my regulation of pianos here at CCM in spite of the fact that I am an RPT. Apparently, for Eric, even regulation and tuning are things that as an RPT a person "may or may not completely understand." So why endorse yet another useless certification? At CCM, it will continue to be for some piano technicians, too much responsibility, not enough authority, no matter what certification I have.
So much for lunch.
Respectfully,
-Ben
-----Original Message-----
From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Wolfley, Eric (wolfleel)
Sent: Thursday, April 23, 2009 10:31 AM
To: 'caut at ptg.org'
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Steinway or Forgery?
I want to interject something here since Ben Sloane works for me here at CCM and tends to be rather verbose on topics he may or may not completely understand. I also wish the list to understand that Ben's opinions are Ben's alone and do not necessarily represent those of either myself or this institution. I simply don't have the time to try to keep up with all these discussions.
The piano he is discussing here (1984 Steinway D) which is now in a jazz/orchestral rehearsal room was, until our recent piano purchases, our #1 instrument in our large concert hall and was used mainly for orchestral concertos and the like. It wasn't our best piano historically but it is pretty nice. When I started here in 1998 it was badly in need of action work and at that time I installed Renner parts and Abel concert-weight hammers since at that time it was difficult to get reliable parts and hammers from Steinway. 2 years ago I had grown completely sick of the way this piano sounded with hard-pressed hammers so I installed new NY Steinway hammers and did a complete Stanwood Precision Touch Design on the action which included a magnet assist function. I did this so the rather high-ratio action could handle concert weight hammers. At the time of the action rebuild, I'm sure the hammerflanges were re-pinned to 3-5 grams friction as measured by a Correx gauge.
I know Steinway was offering the option of Renner actions in the 80s because we have a NY B here which is fitted with such an action but this 1984 D Ben has referred to is not one of them. It is a nice piano and we will see how it stacks up with the others this weekend when we have 6 of our Steinway Ds onstage for our annual "Pianopalooza" event. The 6 pianos will include 2 of our new Ds (one NY and one Hamburg) which are both kick-ass pianos, the aforementioned 1984 D, a 1999 D (Stanwoodized), a 1972 D rebuilt in 2003 (Stanwoodized with an all-new action, back-action and keyboard), and our 1929 D which was rebuilt in 1998 with a Wapin bridge on which I did a precision touch design on the action in 2001. The grand finale of the concert will be a 6 piano, 18 hands rendition of the Stars and Stripes march...I'm sure that will be the finest moment of music in all history!
We are hosting a "piano tasting" event here Monday night for students, faculty and the Cincinnati PTG Chapter to sample and compare these pianos since it is extremely rare to have this many nice concert instruments all on one stage together. It should be very interesting and fun.
Eric
Eric Wolfley, RPT
Director of Piano Services
College-Conservatory of Music
University of Cincinnati
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC