Hi, Dave,
I don’t know if you have a shop there. At CSU Long Beach, we had a sizable shop that I shared with the instrument tech. That opens up so many other possibilities, and not just cleaning the shop. Students used to use our buffing and de-burring machines to polish pedals and pedal rods, sort things like screws and parts, and so on. They were limited due to liability from using any large machinery like saws and drills, but with supervision, could use some others. They could assist with taking inventory in the shop. They could strip parts from an action rail that was about to get new parts, box and label the old parts, and the like.
They were “instrumental” in double-checking our inventory sheets, making sure that pianos and serial numbers in rooms matched those on the inventory. More than once, a student caught a typo that would have made us look bad in the surprise audits. I occasionally had them re-sort benches in practice rooms, since those seemed to move about on a regular basis.
I know they aren’t studying to be piano technicians, but on one occasion, purely as an experiment, I went around to about 10 practice room upright pianos, tuned center strings and left a muting strip in, taught them how to hold a hammer, and had them pull in all the unisons. It wasn’t too bad! And the student said it was “kinda fun”.
Just some other ideas.
Kathy
Original Message:
Sent: 4/19/2023 10:18:00 AM
From: Dave Foster
Subject: Student workers?
Do you have student workers in your Piano Tech Dept?
If so, what are some of the duties they help with?
We are hiring some student workers for the summer and fall. But that all stopped in 2020. So, I'm writing up a new work schedule for new students who want to hire into our Dept. Besides fixing benches, cleaning practice-room pianos, scheduling studio tunings, and refilling DC tanks, what are some of the regular duties they can help with for about 5-10 hours per week?
FYI, this is not an apprenticeship program. I'm not teaching them anything about tuning, rebuilding, or regulating. Just worker-bees to help with maintaining the dept.
Any input would be helpful.
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Dave Foster, RPT
Michigan State University
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