What is and what is not a piano tuner .

[Richard Brekne]

Ron Nossaman wrote:

> >I dunno, I'm not so good with words like Professor Ron... maybe he has a
> >better term that would satisfy everybody.
> >
> >Diane
>
> Gee, I don't know. This isn't my usual station. The regular guy is out
> temporarily on a parole violation, but I'm leaning toward "idiopathic" as a
> generic descriptive term. It's a medical term meaning "of unknown cause or
> origin". (See, the medical profession can be of some use after all,
> especially if you need an obscure term to drop in conversation to scare
> everyone off.) If the forensic examination of an installed tuning can't
> determine the vector by which this tuning was contracted by the piano, then
> it would qualify as a tuning of idiopathic origin, and therefor exempt any
> further random speculation as to whether or not a fork, ears, or a 43 long
> checked sport jacket was employed as an aid to installation (hair length
> not being a factor in any case). That being said, the inductive implication
> is that if the tuning occupying any particular piano is unidentifiable as
> an aural or machine assisted, or autonomously performed mechanical tuning,
> then it's a moot point. It just plain old doesn't matter if the tuning
> installer is the world's best aural tuner, a blithering incompetent with a
> fifteen minute old tuning machine, or any proportional degree of anything
> in between (as will certainly be the case). If he/she/they can dependably
> install a passable tuning then he/she/they is/are piano tuner(s). It
> technically doesn't matter a whit of a smidgeon of a tad what the method
> employed happens to be, if the results are acceptable. "First, do no harm"
> - another little tidbit from our beloved medical profession. Anything
> better than that is, beyond an apparently painfully agreed upon minimal
> finished standard, gravy.

Your wit is as ever fun Ron.. but your deductive skills fail you this time.
You observe rightly so that to the piano, the listener, and the customer... (ie
the observer of the final result) it does not matter how a piano was tuned as
long as it is tuned, to comclude that this means implicitly that it must have
been accomplished by a piano tuner.

>From a purely logical stand point this is simply erroneous. Secondly you do not
define what you mean  by "piano tuner" so the conclusion is quite meaningless.

>
>
> No, not this one, next paragraph please. OK, they're waiting up ahead now,
> so we can talk. One who tunes pianos is a piano tuner, regardless of how
> well or badly it's done, just like the plumber who leaves you only a half
> day's work of your own straightening out his work after he leaves, instead
> of the 3/4 day's work you paid him 2.5 day's wages to perform. Makes no
> difference. He's a plumber, just like the guy who does the same kind of
> work with different tools, or first rate work with the same tool set the
> first guy used. The performance is graded AFTER the test, not during. If a
> guy gets paid to tune pianos, and that's his primary source of income then
> he's a PROFESSIONAL piano tuner - again, no matter how well or badly he
> does it, what he charges, or what tools he chooses to use. That's the
> definition, so that's the rule.

This is not the definition... I have no idea where you spun this up... but it
is not accepted and cannot be used further in the discussion for support or
against any argument pertaining to it.

A plumber, a, carpenter, a doctor, a tuner, is someone who has completed their
educations and demonstrated their profficiency to appropriate commitees, exam
boards what have you. Someone who has not completed their training is what we
refer to as apprentices or students... or some such term.

You know this Ron.

> No amount of puffing up with semantic
> prestidigitation changes the fact that the "quality" of a tuning is judged
> solely on whether or not it meets the customers' criteria for usage. Since
> Richard Breckne likes number grading systems so much, though I don't
> particularly, I'll make the concession in this case and award him a -4 for
> hard headed adherence to a logically unsupportable stand in the face of
> overwhelming rationale to the contrary. Keith gets 10 points, with 7,000
> additional bonus points for good behavior and uncommon restraint, to be
> held in reserve as ammunition for future discussions. Be alert Keith, and
> don't spend them all at once.

Funny again.. but wrong.  I didnt say anything about number grading systems,
And if there is anyone whos logic is erroneous it is certainly not mine... and
I challange you to support this charge by use of that science you like to throw
around. The study of logic is well documented and your conclusions above break
the rules found on the first pages of introductory books.

Nice try Ron.. but this time you are out of there.

--
Richard Brekne
RPT, N.P.T.F.
Bergen, Norway
mailto:Richard.Brekne@grieg.uib.no