Copy of: diatribe

[Bill Spurlock, RPT]

---------- Forwarded Message ----------

From: Bill Spurlock, RPT, 74077,3053
TO:   Jack Reeves, INTERNET:reevesj@byugate.byu.edu
DATE: 11/12/94 10:40 PM

RE:   Copy of: diatribe

The other day Vince responded to my initial posting, and I mistakenly addressed
the response only to him, rather than as a general posting. So, here it is:
 <"Indeed, however well PACE is written (and it is marvelous), it does take
"continuing education" to a different level. It does undeniably tread where the
piano technology schools are, a place where PTG was unwilling to go
in the past.> Really? I don't understand this statement. It seems to me that PTG
has always provided educational opportunities that the authors/instructors
attempted to make as clear and effective as possible. Is my current series on
vertical regulation any more comprehensive than was David Pitch's exhaustive 50
step grand regulation series several years ago? Was it OK for Bob Davis & Dale
Erwin, and Nick Gravagne, to each cover hammer filing last winter, but improper
for me to do it just because my articles had the word PACE above them? Were
Susan Graham's articles on flange rebushing & repinning any less comprehensive
than my PACE article on the subject? I don't think so. Then what is it about the
PACE series that has some people upset? If the PACE articles are perceived as
better, then is someone saying that PTG can only provide educational materials
as long as they are not very good?

Please don't read the above as sarcastic. I don't intend it that way at all, but
rather as honest inquiry. I simply cannot understand the suggestion that PTG is
erring by producing "marvelous" educational materials. As for competition with
the schools, that idea is simply a red herring. The schools had been in decline
for years before PACE came along. It was not our fault then, nor is it now. In a
free market system, it seems to me that:
1) Competition makes all players better, and produces a better product. If PTG's
materials can evolve, so can (and should) the schools' offerings.
2) When a product loses market share, the best solution is for the producer to
improve his/her product, not for competitors to back away so a less competitive
product will survive.

"But PTG is giving away free training" someone will say. To which I would
answer: Journal articles, chapter technicals, and hands-on tutoring have always
existed at the chapter and convention level. We do this because our mission is
to promote professional competency, because the piano industry badly needs an
effective service segment. I am sorry that schools are struggling, but the fact
that some tutors are able to get all the paying students they can handle should
cause others to look for the real causes of their decline.

Last but far from least, is everyone aware how many PTG materials (Journal
articles, convention class tapes, class handouts, PTG publications) are being
used by tuning schools? I hope that no one is suggesting that it is OK for
schools to use materials produced by volunteer, dues-paying PTG members, but
that it is not OK for us to use them ourselves!

It is the poorly serviced piano, and not the educated technician, that is the
enemy.

Bill Spurlock