CAUT

TN, KY, WV, VA, SC, NC, AR.

The CAUT position could be one of assisting and working under another head tech. I would not mind modest pay and could be able to take a part-time position depending on how I tackle health insurance.

I worked full-time as staff at The Catholic University of America, and contracted for American University, and have tuned occasionally for other universities in the DC area.

The reason I'm interested in moving even after becoming an established independent technician in Maryland and DC is that property taxes are skyrocketing in my county and I hope to move somewhere that this is not happening so quickly, and where I could enjoy a much lower cost of living. I'd like to be able to buy land however small a quantity in order to cultivate it as a small homestead, and not be burdened in the process by property taxes that threaten home ownership into a persons's retirement years. This has been a dream in the making for more than four years - spurred on by the surprising spike in property taxes we've had over the past four years. We have been involved with homesteading type activities enough to know that we wish to take things further in that direction.

Another interest of mine is to design and build houses that use things like passive solar and ground temps to be warm in the Winter, cool in the Summer, with reduced power consumption. With smart design and initial investment, I'm convinced that a very high percentage of a home's heating and cooling needs are available in terms of solar and geo-thermal. I have also become convinced that building very small houses could also play a big role in the future of housing. Not tiny homes on a trailer per-se although those can be great, but relatively small and compact compared to what we usually see built. Also, these homes ideally need to be designed to survive tornadoes and fires, to the extent it's feasible. Storm shelters whether in a basement or above-ground would be a priority, yet constructed in a way that can be frequented in normal life rather than being like an emergency vault so much. I'm interested in living in a home where my family goes to sleep every night with a reasonable sense that we will be safe from severe storms whatever the forecast - and whether or not weather alerts are available.

Along with small farming, woodworking and this topic of house design, I'd love to keep working regularly in the piano industry, even if simply as an assistant to a head tech that has a heavy burden of pianos to tune and service at a large university, etc.

I also am just reaching 20 years of experience in piano rebuilding that involves pinblock duplication and stringing, soundboard and bridge duplication, and keyboard and action work. I also know soldering / brazing and metal fabrication / welding from my previous job. As a piano rebuilder I consider myself extremely meticulous and picky about things like the outcome of tuning pin torque consistency, quality of bass strings, final outcome of the action and voicing and so-on. Not to mention the kind of tone and sustain, termed loosely, that an entire acoustic system produces. This has been born of both being a pianist as well as having to deliver as a piano technician a finished result to professional pianists with reasonable expectations.

What I am not however, is an engineer, be it acoustic or structural. I'm more of a fine woodworker and regular professional piano tech. I also think that I am more suited at the moment at least to the work of the piano technician / regular RPT than a piano rebuilder - because I tend to run late with piano rebuilds and struggle to stay on schedule. I take on too much in any given year. In the future I will solve this problem by either giving up piano rebuilding, devoting more focused time to it (which is the case for 2025) or structure it in a better space with an entirely different lifestyle where my time is allocated more realistically.

I'm also an amateur fine furniture designer and builder which had been evolving slowly prior to 2020 but which began to take on new meaning during the pandemic. My emphasis so far has been on designs that incorporate traditional woodworking joints and have the prospect of lasting almost indefinitely if kept inside a building. I also highlight the natural color of the wood selected rather than staining it. What this allows is for a piece to take on a patina of scuffs, dings and dents from normal use without looking as ugly as a darkly-stained piece after lots of wear. If a dark color is desired, dark wood is selected.

I hope in due to time to continue to harvest native wood from trees that come down in storms or that have to be removed in an urban area due to disease, etc to continue to use for such things. There is plenty of this type of wood available for bespoke work.

Attached are photos of a passive solar A-frame shelter I designed to offer chickens shelter in cold daytime weather. It's an example of the power of harnessing free energy. With clear roofing facing south, the solar warmth generated inside the A-frame is so powerful that it is much warmer inside than out, even with a great deal of air-flow and exposure as one can observe.

Also, a table and cook-book stand I finished in 2024, and a night-stand in cherry and maple. The table came from a giant historic felled oak pulled off a road-widening construction project in my county.

In the face of varied and challenging times of late, I have slowly being going through a kind of change of mindset. I look around the country and world and consider how many communities have been affected by different kinds of calamity and hardship. What I have grown to slowly accept is that the best way forward to is to plan on facing the possibility of new hardships and challenges with optimism and grit. Whatever world is handed to the generation of my children, I think that the best I can do is teach them how to meet their challenges with optimism and innovation. And not only this, but to build into our futures a kind of disaster-resilience that will allow us to reach a helping hand to others. That will be the main goal. At least, I would like this to be the greatest work and legacy of my life.

Best wishes to each for this new year, for peace, safety and well-being. I wish to extend my greatest sympathies for anyone affected by the CA fires at the moment, as well as some of the other fires and floods we had recently around the country. If there is anything we as a community can do to be of assistance please feel welcome let us know of your situation so that we can support you and encourage you in whatever way we can.