[CAUT] workload

[tnrwim at aol.com]

Bill

If the university was "happy" with the work of the previous RPT, then there was no reason why they would think a non-RPT would do any better. There could be any number of reasons why the previous tech didn't do the work, including the lack of funds and/or time to do the work. Also, how long had it been since he left the school? The problems you encountered could have been created after he left. 

When you showed them how the pianos were supposed to be, you educated them on the importance of being an RPT.  As I just mentioned in the other post, being an RPT should be a minimum requirement. Hopefully a school will do a more in depth interview, including a tuning demonstration, and get some letters of recommendations. 

As far as looking for specific problems with an action, I did the same thing once at a chapter meeting. I took one octave, and did something "wrong" to each key, and then asked others to figure out what was wrong with each key. As was in your case, there was only one tech who identified all the problems. The primary reason I think it was hard to do is that in general, when we encounter a piano, all of the notes will need let off adjusted, and/or drop or reps adjusted, etc. etc. It is much easier to identify a problem when all the keys have the same thing wrong with them. 

Wim




-----Original Message-----
From: wbis290 <wbis290 at aol.com>
To: caut <caut at ptg.org>
Sent: Fri, Jul 23, 2010 2:56 pm
Subject: [CAUT] workload


Hi All, 
 
Just an observation after reading about the workloads that most have to do for universities whether large or small and wandering why many universities don't specify that the technician should be an RPT. I am beginning to wander if it means anything to be an RPT. When Ohio Northern asked me to work for them, I was wandering why. The person who was doing the work for them was a long time RPT. I was asked to look at their pianos to see what the university was like and the condition of their pianos. I was surprised at what I found. In their performing arts building, the Steinway A was in terrible shape as far as voicing and regulation. Their 9' Bechstein EN had three strings missing and needed a ton of work. The Bechstein EN in their recital hall as almost as bad and the Steinway B in the recital hall also needed a lot of work. These were the good pianos. You should have seen the rest. I have spent 4 years catching up making the piano good.They were openly questioning me abo ut the importance of being an RPT since the last person was an RPT and did such a poor job.
 
My eyes were really opened when I was asked to give a class for our Guild chapter. I decided to take a Petrof grand and change things in the action and have the members figure out what was wrong with the individual notes and why and how it affected the touch, tone, and voicing of the piano and what would be the long term affects on the action if nothing was done. Only three  RPT members had any clue as to what most of the problems were. The other RPTs could not figure most, and in some cases, any of the problems. These were not hard things to figure out but were simple things like jack to knuckle alignment, repetition lever height, ect. 
 
>From these two things as well as some other things such as cleaning up bad work that was done in private homes, churches, and schools that were done by RPTs, why would the universities specify that the person applying for the job be an RPT? Maybe the Guild should have some sort of follow up tech test that RPTs need to take every x number of years to keep their RPT status. Tuning does not seem to be the problem, but the technical part seems to be where the problem comes in for many RPTs.
 
God bless
 
Bill Balmer, RPT
Ohio Northern University and the University of Findlay  

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