[CAUT] U. of Northern Iowa position

Thu Aug 12 06:43:24 MDT 2010

When I was studying for my degree in the 50's & 60's my major advisor said, "The principal message given to a future employer about your having a degree is that you are a person who started on a 4-year program and finished it."

dp

David M. Porritt, RPT
dporritt at smu.edu

From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of tnrwim at aol.com
Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2010 9:22 PM
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [CAUT] U. of Northern Iowa position

I think to clarify what I am trying to say is (and I've said it before), the

musical skills one needs to be a very good piano technician do not require a

very expensive college degree in music, and a music degree will confer very

little of the knowledge and skill needed to be an excellent college piano

technician.

If a piano technician feels he/she needs a college degree, the degree which will

benefit him/her most will be a degree in business administration. Far more of

what we do is taught there than in the music school. There is no college degree

for the manual labor skills required of our work. That's got to come from your

mother and father's chromosomes. And, I'm not so convinced that those same

chromosomes can't also contain the musical aptitude required as well.

Jeff

Jeff

We've talked about this before, but let me give you my perception on this. Any college degree in any field is not the end of the education line. Most employers who hire graduates for any field do so with the understanding that the first 6 - 12 months of employment will be a learning period for the graduate because there is so much more to a "job", than what is leaned in the classroom.

But, there still is value in the degree that person earned. If anything, the education one got in any particular field give that student a basic understanding of what the profession is all about, whether it is accounting, engineering, computer science, art, or music. Without that basic understanding, there is nothing to build from,

When it come to being a piano technician, while I agree that the degree in music, technically, is not directly related, but someone with a degree in music at least has a basic understand of what happens in a music department, something that in most schools, would be a big plus. Someone who has never set foot in a music department might not have the basic understanding of practice room etiquette, a need for rehearsal time, or the importance of having a piano prepped in time for that Saturday night concert.

Wim

-----Original Message-----
From: tannertuner <tannertuner at bellsouth.net>
To: caut <caut at ptg.org>
Sent: Wed, Aug 11, 2010 1:10 pm
Subject: Re: [CAUT] U. of Northern Iowa position

I think to clarify what I am trying to say is (and I've said it before), the

musical skills one needs to be a very good piano technician do not require a

very expensive college degree in music, and a music degree will confer very

little of the knowledge and skill needed to be an excellent college piano