Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
14
O u r TECHNICAL DEPARTMENT
CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM BRAID WHITE
LIGHT IN DARKNESS
There is again in the tuning world an agita-
tion on the matter of organization, and argu-
ments are being put forth in influential quarters
to promote a movement for the national ag-
gregation of all who practice the art accordant.
Justiwhat attitude to take in this obviously im-
portant matter, I am almost puzzled to de-
cide; for there is much to be said pro and con.
Of course, as one of those who were responsi-
ble for propagating the movement which crystal-
lized during 1910 in the American Guild of
Piano Tuners, I am the last person to prefer
the present state of chaos to one of order, or
the hopeless confusion in prices, conditions and
rewards, which exists throughout the country,
to even a rigid classification; if so be the latter
will bring order out of disorder, plan out of
void and harmony out of disharmony.
Still
the question is of enormous importance and
this not the less because there exists already a
society which, in fact, is the official body of the
profession, and has been so recognized.
Its
enemies assert that its management is failing
to reach those whom it was founded to band to-
gether. They also claim that it represents only
an insignificant minority of the great body of
tuners; and represents no more.
With the first of these assertions, 1 have no
concern. The second, however, is important.
An insignificant minority is a minority that has
very little, if any, influence. It does not sig-
nify and nobody need care about it. Now, a
minority may be very small numerically, and
yet very strong in influence. A guild composed
of Millers and Maitlands would be immensely
powerful, even if it had only a hundred mem-
bers in it throughout the land. A guild of
ten thousand members can have no influence
worth naming unless it strives towards gaining
the only worth-while or usable influence; the
influence of superior intellectual and moral re-
source.
But so important are the matters at issue that
I conceive some discussion of them in these
pages must be valuable to all concerned. I
propose neither personal nor polemical writing.
I have no intention to organize or permit a
controversy that can lead nowhere. But, see-
ing that the present guild has, on the face of
things, not succeeded in organizing the tuners
of the country, I propose to ask myself what
advantages might conceivably be gained by a
movement that did succeed in this great work.
In short, if either the present guild or some
other association were to succeed in organiz-
ing the profession on any worthy basis, what
advantages might the individual tuner rightly
and naturally see in it?
This is the subject to which I propose to de-
vote some space from time to time this spring.
In so doing I am actuated by a desire to throw
light on a tangled heap of opinions; but not
to exploit only my own pet notions. I have
no patent remedies to prescribe nor arm-chair
theories to propose. What we need is full
and free discussion; for it may safely be said
that if the movement for organization now ap-
parently crystallizing, should result in another
failure, the whole question will drop out of the
Professional Tuners
who feel the need of Improving their technical
and practical knowledge In advanced tuning,
fraud piano work and general player work, are
nvlted to correspond with me. I am prepared to
take a few such gentlemen for short coaching
courses in these subjects. I do not teach by cor-
respondence. Address, for particulars,
f
WILLIAM BRAID WHITE
6949 Harper Avenue
Chicago, Ills.
realm of the practical and its sole future inter-
est will be academic.
The above paragraphs, then, will full explain
the meaning, the animus and the reason of the
following remarks, and of any others of the
same sort which may appear in these pages from
time to time, under my name. I may add what
is already implied; namely, that full and free
discussion, on both sides, will be welcome, and
may be sure of as much attention as its im-
portance may warrant.
PRICE
There is no clear reason why a piano should
be tuned for $2.50 in one place and for $3 or
$3.50 in another place. Yet the. fact does re-
main that the compensation which tuners are
able to command varies in a fashion most il-
logical and absurd. One of the possible ad-
vantages of organization in any effective form
should certainly be that of bringing about
some sort of order in this vital and much neg-
lected matter.
It cannot be pretended that the actual work
of tuning a piano is any harder in New Mexico
than it is in New York. It may take longer
to travel in the one than in the other territory,
and there may be incidental troubles, such as
pianos being left longer without tuning; but
given pianos of the same age, grade and gen-
eral condition, the same kind of work will or
should take the same general length of time;
North, South, East or West.
Now, of course, it can be understood that
when one can only tune two pianos a day owing
to the distance between customers, the price per
piano must be greater than it is where one can
tune four in the same street in no longer time.
But this simple fact does not at all account for
wide local differences in prices, between such
cities as New York and Philadelphia, Boston
and Buffalo, Chicago and Indianapolis, in all
of which the conditions are reasonably similar,
and in some of which they are virtually iden-
tical.
It is evident that chance and chance
only has ruled the establishment of standard
prices for each of these and for many other com-
munities ;and that therefore while some of them
may be quite fair to the tuner, others are as
obviously unfair, unjust and oppressive.
It.is quite certainly impossible to imagine any
society or association being able to impose upon
the public anything corresponding to a fixed
price for tuning. No such scheme is either
possible or desirable. For there is nothing cor-
responding to similarity in the conditions which
surround individual pianos.
The tuner in
the same city will find, in the course of a day's
work, pianos of the most varying kinds, which
have remained out of tune for periods ranging
from a few weeks to many months, and whose
susceptibility to treatment is equally various
and equally impossible to predetermine. It is
plain that the problem in each will be different,
demanding for its solution wholly different de-
grees of skill. It is equally plain, therefore,
that the price in each case should justly be dif-
ferent also, based upon something correspond-
ing with the labor and skill required therein.
Now it is not enough to say that the tuner's
individual skill will be compensated as is proper
for it; that a good tuner will receive pay in ac-
cordance with his skill and conversely, a bad
tuner will suffer* loss of high pay in accordance
with his lack of skill. The fact is that piano
tuning is not like the art and mystery of
physic, where a doctor charges what his pa-
tients can afford to pay. The piano tuner,
whether artist or bungler, whether master or
new-fledged graduate, is regarded by most peo-
ple simply as "a piano tuner," whose work is to
tune pianos; and to tune pianos means, to most
people, simply to go through certain motions
and collect a fee.
In all scientific research into the causes of
industrial unrest, the fluctuating value of a man's
labor has been the principal obstacle to formu-
lation of any practical scheme of remedy. But
by degrees the fact is becoming more and more
plainly perceived that the only real standard
of compensation for any kind of work is found
on the basis of the unit of time. An hour's
work, for example, may scientifically be con-
sidered the basis of compensation in any line of
labor, simply because, if anything approaching
to equality is desired, no other basis is of the
slightest value. I do not say this in the ex-
pectation that the thesis advanced is infallible,
but I do know that the hour's work basis would
be the most sensible, the most simple, and the
most scientific for settling the vexed problem of
the price of piano tuning.
I suppose that 1 need not remind readers how
plumbers, and others who do job work, base
their charges on so much an hour, calculated
from the time of leaving the shop to the end of
the job. Now suppose that an organization of
piano tuners, established in any locality, and suf-
ficiently strong to enforce its ideas, were to set
forth a price schedule based on, let us say, $1
per hour, for piano tuning inside city limits,
and $1 per hour plus traveling expenses else-
where. Suppose the' idea were to spread in
different localities where conditions vary widely.
Does any one suppose that such conditions
would not completely and satisfactorily be met
in both cases on the hour's work basis? If
it took half an hour's traveling and two hours'
work in one case and two hours' traveling with
three hours' work in the other, the proportionate
return to the tuner in each would be the same;
the customer, meanwhile, paying only just the
fair price either way.
This question of price is one of the most im-
portant the tuner is called on to deal with, and
it is plain that no single act of any tuners' or-
ganization could be as beneficial to the individual
as the establishment of a scientific basis for
calculating tuning prices. 1 therefore set forth
the above in the hope that it may produce some
valuable thought on the part of those who are
considering the possibility of getting into the
organization movement.
A BUSINESS=GETTING LETTER
Our well-known friend, Price Kiker, he of
the dangerous name, who hails from Texas, has
sent a very interesting letter which he is mail-
ing to his customers in the search for business.
OU will find it to your
interest to ship straight
pianos to us and let us
transform them into 88-
note player-pianos. Write for
prices and particulars.
We are ready to supply manufacturers
with quantities, and we guarantee
satisfaction
JENKINSON PLAYER ACTION CO., Inc.
912-914 Elm St.
Cincinnati, O.
FAUST
SCHOOL OF TUNING
Piano, Player-Piano, Pipe and Reed Organ Toning and Re-
pairing, also Regulating, Voicing, Varnishing and Polishing
This formerly was the tuning department of the New
England Conservatory of Music, and Oliver C. Faust was
head of the department for 20 years previous to its dis-
continuance.
Courses in mathematical piano scale construction and
drafting of same have been added.
Pupils have daily practisa in Chickering & Sons' factory.
Year Book sent free upon request.
27-29 GAINSBOROUGH ST., BOSTON, MASS.