techicians or tooners

[Israel Stein]

At 11:00 AM 6/2/2007, Annie Grieshop wrote:
>When I received Michael Spreeman's email, I was just about to sit down and
>write an addendum to my previous posting because I never meant to imply that
>non-playing technicians are inferior (and I was pretty sure somebody was
>going to take it that way).  Obviously, I should've been more clear the
>first time around. <g>
>
>My question referred to the recognition of non-tuning issues by those who
>don't play the piano.  I know wonderful technicians who have a very limited
>repertoire on the piano, so I certainly know it's possible.  Observant,
>careful, and conscientious craftspeople can diagnose and correct problems
>without being pianists (sort of like male gynecologists <g>).
>
>And what I meant was that the difference between a piano technician and a
>piano tooner is exactly that ability to reach beyond personal experience and
>do extra-ordinatry work.
>
>I do wonder what it's like to work on an instrument you don't play.  I
>wonder how that changes the relationship.  Guess I should try repairing some
>band instruments, as the whole blow-air-to-play-tunes thing (without reeds)
>just bamboozles me.
>
>Annie Grieshop

Annie,

Let me put a bit of a different perspective on this. Even if you play 
the piano, there are times that your technical limitations as a 
player will cause you to miss problems that you would pick up if you 
were to rely on your technical knowledge as a technician (and other 
skills - see below).

To illustrate:  years ago in Boston I did a concert tuning for an 
up-and-coming pianist who was (atypically) quite aware of the inner 
workings of the piano. He asked me to check over the sostenuto - it 
was catching dampers it shouldn't have been. I adjusted the sostenuto 
to the point that it was working fine when I tested it (with what I 
thought were some pretty firm blows). He sat down to test it - and 
sure enough, some damper tabs were driven past the sostenuto knife by 
his much harder blows and stuck. I learned an important lesson then - 
my limited technique as a pianist will not reveal all problems and I 
should rather depend on my technical skills (and interviewing skills) 
to diagnose problems and check results.

Israel Stein