[examiner]ETD exam

[Dave Nereson]

>>Why should an ETD tuner want to spend countless hours learning a skill
he/she is never going to use again after he/she passes to tuning  exam?<<

    Oh, you never know.  You just may need that skill.  It's like driving
without a spare tire.  Yes, you'll probably always have your cell phone with
you, but help may not always be close by, or the terrorists might blow up
the cell phone satellite, or there might not be a garage for 40 miles or
whatever.  Can you get yourself out of a jam if you don't have your
electronic devices?
    An ETD's battery can go dead or a chip or some other component could
fry, or it could be stolen, or dropped, causing it to conk out, or sunspot
activity or something similar might wipe it out someday -- whatever... can
you still tune the piano?  (Oh, I know ... if we have major disasters, piano
tuning will be the last concern, but....) Or you might get so used to
watching the spinner or the lights that you get lazy and stop listening to
beats.  I dunno, as a customer, I would respect a tuner more that could tune
by ear if he/she had to, rather than always needing the ETD.  [I don't mean
you, Wim -- I'm just throwing out hypothetical situations, some of which I
don't think are all that far-fetched.]
     I've seen times when computer systems go "down" at stores and the young
cashiers are helpless, whereas an older person who'd been around before
computerized cash registers would still be able to add up the purchases on
paper, multiply by .07 for the tax, and still be able to conduct business,
although at a slower rate.  (I know, they have to enter the bar code for
inventory purposes, but you know what I'm saying -- young cashiers can't
make change any more without looking at the display that gives them the
amount.)
    Sometimes an ETD can't "read" the note because of a string with "wild"
partials or a non-sounding partial.  Or it calculates the tuning based on
these or those parameters, but when you actually tune the piano, you find
some notes or whole sections you have to re-tune or modify because the
calculated tuning wasn't tailored quite finely enough to that particular
scale.  Can that tuner analyze the situation and make the necessary
corrections by ear, without spending 15 minutes punching buttons, trying to
get the "machine" to behave?  Do all ETD's have the capability to tell
him/her what's amiss if the tuning isn't quite pleasing to the ear?  We ARE
trying to please the ear in our tunings, not the eye or some mathematical
ideal.
    The way I see it, a draftsman (/woman) who can draw building plans in
the dirt with a stick, without requiring a drafting table, blueprints, or a
CAD program gets my respect and convinces me that he/she knows his/her stuff
more than one who is helpless without the advanced technology.

    --David Nereson, RPT