POTENTIAL PROBLEMS AT THE UK BASED PIANO TUNERS ASSOCIATION AND WHY I JOINED THE PIANO TECHNICIANS GUILD

So whats the problem, I hear you ask. Well the problem is, that in the ten years of existence of the Piano Technology School and having trained over 60 individuals, the vast majority of whom are now working as piano professionals, only one person has gone on to elect to take the membership tests to join the PTA. This is in spite of the fact that nearly all of our students took up student membership of the PTA. The last time I checked, out of the the previous 50 student members, only 2 or 3 went on to become full members, this is a very alarming statistic. The cause however is not difficult to work out.

The PTA adopts a very strange policy, called the 2 year rule, which insists that graduates have to wait 2 years before being eligible to even take the test for full membership. They have to join the PTA as what they call apprentice members and enroll on what the PTA calls a mentoring program, designed to get apprentice members through the tests. As can be seen from the very low numbers who go on to convert from student, to full membership, this is blatantly not happening. In my professional opinion as a teacher and trainer, this is failing the needs of many talented and worthy candidates who decide not to be involved in this disastrous policy and the PTA has squandered the opportunity to engage with the next generation of tuners and technicians, in spite of ever declining membership numbers.

Because of this obvious failing, I decided, last year to get involved with the Piano Technicians Guild, the worlds largest piano technology organisation. I became a member and successfully passed my RPT qualifications at last years convention.

As the saying goes, you don’t know what you don’t know and having attended the convention and experiencing the wonderful resources and facilities which the PTG has to offer, the excellent organization of the Guild and the openness and willingness to share information, it has become clear to me that, in my opinion, the PTA in this country is not offering individuals who are new to the trade the best option for continuing personal development and professional accreditation and I have therefore been encouraging our students and graduates to consider joining the PTG instead.

What happened next is very interesting. Mysteriously after around ten years of our course being listed on the PTA website, the listing was removed and replaced with a statement, to the effect that only 3 year programs could give the proper training to become professional tuners and that short courses are available but you would not be able to work as a freelance tuner after completion. This is of course a blatant and provable lie and the PTA have subsequently removed this statement at my insistence. It seems to me that this was some kind of punishment beating for daring to be involved with the PTG, even though it has long been an international organization boasting members from over 30 countries.

I had decided on a personal level not to renew my PTA membership but instead decided to explore becoming a PTA Patron, in the belief that The Piano Technology School could continue to offer support to the PTA and with the intention that our students could make up their own mind about which organization they wanted to join, or indeed to join both if they wanted. I duly paid the appropriate fee and the Piano Technology School became official Patrons of the PTA. To my surprise however, I was informed that Patrons were not allowed under the rules to make any mention of being Patrons, even on our website or on a personal biography. I found this ruling to be rather strange, how can you give public patronage to an organization when you are forbidden from mentioning the fact. Subsequently I decided to change my mind and cancel the Patron option and renew my membership again, only to be informed that this request had been refused on the grounds that I have somehow, as yet to be explained, brought the organization in to disrepute and even though qualified I was not allowed to be a member or Patron with immediate effect with no right to appeal.

We are now in the somewhat incredible position, where the UKs leading training establishment and the country’s most highly qualified and experienced Piano Technology trainer has no seat at the table and no voice in the organization which claims to support training in the UK. I had tried to raise my concerns in the PTA newsletter, while I was still a member, but the editor refused to publish my letter, instead referring it to the council on the grounds that it might be too controversial to publish.

Whilst I do not have any concerns about my own personal membership, as I have now found a home with the far superior PTG , I do have grave concerns that our alumni, students and prospective applicants are being discriminated against, by the PTAs decision to only recommend 3 year courses and would urge the PTA to put our listing back on their website, as nothing has changed, since it was previously listed, or explain what the reason is for removing it.

My membership of the PTG has made me realize that as well as the disastrous two year rule and mentoring program adopted by the PTA, there are many other obvious failings with how the PTA is set up and operates. As I have no means of discussing these problems with either the Council or the membership of the PTA, as I am effectively persona non grata at this organization I have decided to publish my concerns here in the hope that they may be at least discussed and hopefully improved upon.

The PTA makes various claims on its web site and I quote ‘All PTA members have passed theoretical and practical examinations to prove their ability as qualified tuners or technicians` Now if I was a member of the public I would have certain expectations that a PTA member would have demonstrated their ability to work on grand pianos. You may be shocked to hear, that it is perfectly possible to pass the PTA test for full membership, having only demonstrated competence on upright pianos, yes you read that correctly, you can obtain full membership of the PTA without demonstrating any knowledge of how to work on grand pianos, you can take the tuning test and repairs test exclusively on upright pianos if you wish and still attain full membership.

I believe a member of the public would also be entitled to assume that full members who have passed the test would have demonstrated detailed knowledge of piano regulation, astoundingly this is not the case either. The only part of the examination relating to this, is on an upright action model, where various faults have been introduced, such as moving a check wire in too close or removing card punchings from the front rail or winding down the set off button etc. This is at best a fault finding or problem solving test and does not ask participants to demonstrate any knowledge of the detailed regulating procedure or settings required for uprights or grands to be correctly adjusted in order to play properly.

Contrast this with the PTG examinations, where examinees are expected to demonstrate their knowledge of correct and detailed regulation settings for upright and grand pianos and where the tuning test is conducted exclusively on grand pianos.

The PTG also has a written examination consisting of 100 questions, chosen at random from an online library of hundreds of possible questions, covering all aspects of tuning, repairs and regulation on upright and grand pianos. Contrast this with the PTA which has only a brief verbal test, a viva voce lasting only a few minutes where applicants have to answer some basic questions relating to how pianos function and naming of case parts in order to pass.

The way the PTA tuning and repairs test is set up, in my opinion raises serious questions about its validity. The PTA does not actually own any pianos, it does not have any premises or even an office, this means that the tests are conducted in various locations on borrowed instruments which can be of random ages and condition. Unlike the PTG, where the examination pianos, (all grands of a specific design and size) are detuned using a specifically designed computer program, which raises and lowers the pitch slightly, without changing the overall tension of the instrument, the PTA pianos are simply knocked flat in a random fashion by the examiner, approximately 6 HZ under concert pitch, meaning that every tuning test is in fact a pitch raise procedure and not a good test of fine tuning, which can only be conducted on a stable instrument, which is nearly in tune and requires only fine and precise adjustment. If there are 2 or more candidates,. The same instrument is then knocked flat again and candidates have to try and fine tune the same piano, which is now even more unstable.

When it comes to assessing the tuning there are again some serious issues around how the PTA conducts this assessment. All that happens is that the examiners on the day, have a listen and allocate marks based on what they think is correct at the time, there is no clearly defined standard to work towards. Contrast this with the PTG, where 3 examiners spend hours creating a master tuning, agreed upon by them all, which is then recorded on to tuning software. Candidates tunings are then compared to the master tuning and marks are allocated in a very consistent and precise manner, in the same way for each and every candidate. In addition the PTA examiners have not themselves had any additional training or demonstrated any advanced knowledge in order to become examiners, they are simply invited on board. Contrast this with the PTG, where all examiners have to pass rigorous high level additional tests in aural tuning in order to attain examiner status.

It has been suggested that I am trying to bring down the PTA, this could not be further from the truth, I am merely pointing out there are some, in my opinion serious failings in the way the PTA conducts its business, I believe a shake up is well overdue. I have tried on many occasions to bring these issues to light, but the PTA continues to bury its head in the sand and paint itself further in to the corner where any change is seen as a drop in standards. I hope some existing PTA members will take notice of this post and raise these issues in the hope that some good will come of it.

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