What is and what is not a piano tuner .

[Conrad Hoffsommer]

Herr (hairy?) Nossaman,

>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".

You need a slightly larger dictionary, my friend.  The Greek root "idios", 
in this case, refers to one's own and idiopathic would be "an independent 
disease, neither induced by nor related to another disease; a sponteneous 
or primary disease".  An unknown disease would be just that,  the 
idiopathic designation would be more properly affixed after research proved 
it so.

Some people consider the piano to be an instrument in the category 
"idiophone".  I don't agree, since that really refers to instruments which 
are in and of themselves, such as triangle, cymbal or chimes.  My reasoning 
is that the vibrating part (string) needs another part (s/b) in order to be 
heard.

Ideo- combining form meaning "idea"

Anyway...

In an idiotic mishmash of almost definitions, one could say that we are 
idiosyncratic ideologists ideally emparting idiotypical idiosyncratic 
temperaments on idiomorphic instruments, eh?


Richard, et al,

In the continuing legal awareness climate engendered by the electoral 
situation, may I suggest that this nomenclature discussion is apples and 
oranges.

de facto - of fact
de jure - of law

De facto
- I am a tuner because I say I am.  I have people who are happy with what I 
do to their pianos and actually call me back for subsequent treatments.  I 
am a professional because I (gladly) accept payment for these treatments, 
and derive no income from other  service activities.
-Other people call me "tuner"

De jure (sort of)
- I am a PTG member of RPT status.

- The day I have to agree to a government agency determining what is/is not 
a tuner is the day I go "off-grid".

De facto de matter is dat I'm a tuner by general consent.  It is the end 
product which determines that fact.  How I get there makes no nevermind.

If an ETD tuner without aural skills has the ETD knocked off the piano and 
smashed on the ceramic tile floor by a frisky family feline  friend and can 
no longer adequately continue, that person ,IMHO, is not a tuner.  The 
tuning was never really completed, therefore no end product, therefore no 
basis for granting the status "tuner".  (Note: I originally made the typo 
"tuber".  Maybe Freud would say that that person is a piano potato? )

Time now to go oudt and play in the snow to tune my church piano.


Conrad Hoffsommer - Luther College, Decorah, IA
Ignorance doesn't kill you, but it will make you sweat a lot.-Haitian proverb