William....this Bud's for you!
Al
From: William Monroe
Sent: Monday, October 05, 2009 8:16 AM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [pianotech] Tuning pin height
Come on Israel (and others),
Can we stop looking for a rationale to leave beckets wherever? This is a stretch. The "repetitive motion" happens regardless of becket placement. Can't we just accept that it's a cosmetic detail and some of us like to have that cosmetic detail in place, take some pride in it even? We've done away with the myth that it HAS to be more work and now it is simply a matter that you either choose to line them up or don't. Stop trying to justify not doing it with anything other than a simple, "I don't prefer attend to that."
This search for a justification is really unproductive.
William R. Monroe
On Mon, Oct 5, 2009 at 12:02 AM, Israel Stein <custos3 at comcast.net> wrote:
From: Ron Nossaman <rnossaman at cox.net> Fri, 02 Oct 2009 10:26:01 -0500
Israel Stein wrote:
And when rebuilding pianos in an institutional setting on salary one must always engage in triage, due to constraints on time and resources, pay attention to things that affect function and sometimes forget about one's "pride".
It's a bit different for an independent. We don't have time to waste either, as the pay is tied to the job rather than the calendar. Still, there are too many times when we spend much longer doing a fixed pay job than we intended, just because we aren't satisfied with the outcome. Each job that goes out represents us to entirely different people in totally uncontrolled ways.
Ron,
Yes, I am aware of that. I work both sides of the fence - I am only half-time at the University and have only been there for about the last 5 years of my career. What bothers me about all this is there IS that time pressure on the private practitioner - from the client who wants his/her instrument back and from the need to pay the mortgage at some point. And guess what one is working on when that time pressure comes - voicing and regulation. And so more often than not I see all the fussing has been done early in the process - when the cosmetic stuff is being done - and the latter, functionally critical stuff gets shorted. It's really easy to talk yourself into believing that the piano plays and sounds fine (especially when the regulating is done by formula and not on the basis of function - but that's an entirely different discussion). Not that I am complaining - I have made plenty money re-regulating and revoicing some of those "purty" pianos over the years. It's just not good for the profession when people find out that those very expensive nice-looking "fully rebuilt" pianos aren't what they are cracked up to be... I just hate it when people generalize about workmanship on the basis of insignificant cosmetic details.
Israel Stein
--
William R. Monroe, RPT
A440-William R. Monroe Piano Services, Inc.
314 E. Church St.
Belleville, WI 53508
608-215-3250
www.a440piano.net
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