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Besides that Mark, is against forum rules for you to be promoting your own business as you are doing. I also completely disagree as will others here, that learning to tune pianos WELL is not nearly as simple as you make it seem. Just because you happe to teach a tuning course.... Better go back and re-read Piano World rules and regulations....

Jerry, I have only recently started posting and thought I was doing something wrong when Jbyron and Marty responded so sarcastically to my post. After apologizing, I read the rules and it appears I have done nothing wrong. I have in no way advertised my school except to put my full disclosure in my signature, which I am supposed to do. And to mention it only in respect to the specific question at hand and to give my opinion more qualification. Also, I don't just "happen" to teach a tuning course. Go to my site and read the reviews. I think
you'll get the picture.

Also, I would like to direct attention to some of the quotes I did find in the rules and if someone could identify where I have erred, that would be appreciated:

"If you are or were a piano industry professional, please identify yourself as such so people will know the source of your "expertise".

I think I have done that correctly

"We do not condone members hiding behind a veil of anonymity so they can push their own agenda, promote their own business or products, or create negative posts about their competitors and/or competitive products."

Can you explain how I was hiding? How did I hide to promote my business? Or better yet, how can one answer a question that deals with a subject they are an expert at, without inherently promoting themselves as that very expert. Also, I believe this rules deals specifically with the hiding part, not the promoting part. I've seen more than a few people doing that blatantly without the kind of backlash that I received.

"Stop the Self-Promotion!
It is NOT ACCEPTABLE for you to create posts thinly disguised as an innocent discussion when in fact they are nothing more than a promotion for your business."

Ah, here is the meat, eh? Was my post thinly disguised? Is it nothing more than a promotion for my business (which by the way is 90% piano tuning) or was it

"...a genuine effort to be honest and helpful"

Full quote:"If you make a genuine effort to be honest and helpful, you just may pick up some business because people trust you. That's fine, I have no problem with that."

I offer that my intention was for the latter.

And finally, jByron and Minnesota Marty seemed to have fun at my expense so I thought they should reread this rule:

"Do not be mean-spirited or decidely negative."

Thanks for the opportunity to present my point of view. I hope I have done it coherently. I love teaching and I would like to use my expertise to help others without being attacked.

Mark :

Don't be too surprised with the negativity and suspicion ... being a new poster here you tend to be "on trial", until such times as your posts demonstrate competence to the more experienced and accepted members.

Mark :
Don't be too surprised with the negativity and suspicion ... being a new poster here you tend to be "on trial", until such times as your posts demonstrate competence to the more experienced and accepted members.

...even then the bar is pretty high. You first need to figure out a way to regulate a spinet to get higher repetition speed than a grand. Then tune an obscure historic temperament that sounds better than ET. After that, you need to be able to post 3 sound clips of your "special" tuning in musical context with a minimum 2 paragraph verbal accolade using no less than 5 positive descriptive adjectives to suggest what listeners ought to be hearing, in case they don't have a mind of their own. This last part must be done with a single mouse click, and redone with a different musical piece, every time the topic moves to page 2.

LOL and I actually am. Thanks for that Emmery et al. That was HILARIOUS!

Welcome to the ward Mark. So do you have any novel teaching methods for tuning you feel makes the process easy for learners?
I've mentored 2 relative beginners over the years in a very light hearted manner and found that one picked things up much easier than the other. Showed them both the same things in the same way. I just have this feeling results are less about the teaching, and more about the capacity to learn, ability to concentrate, and level of devotion from the students.

Like I said Mark, I don't charge for the help I give so i don't regard myself a "teacher". I simply try and help refine things they already know and understand or clarify misunderstandings.

One main issue is accuity of sound perception. A student tunes two unisons to what they believe is beatless. I mention that its rolling a bit and straighten it out. They don't pick up on it. I have used an ETD at times to better illustrate what I'm targetting. They will read the note and visually see the slow roll I'm referring to. I deliberately look away as they do this. I will then straighten out the roll aurally, and have them check it with the ETD to confirm that my accuity and theirs differs and the note could benefit from tweaking. Sometimes if there is an anomoly between the two strings, I will further show that a specific target frequency of the ETD won't rectify it and how we compensate by ear to split the difference or use a preferred partial.

Same method used to teach, but there is still great disparity between the speeds at which they pick it up.