Thanks, DoelKees for the translation. A very touching story. I am very gratful to you.

I have discvered that it would cost £1800 (GBP) to send Max to Moscow with a 3* hotel for a week for intensive training. There are most likely other alternatives. Does anyone know someplace in Moscow That would be qualified to give this training?

RXD:

The first step in helping Max would be better equipment. If there was some way to set up an account with Frank's PianoSupplies.com for Max to use I will put in the first $50.

Jeff.

Read further back in the thread. Max did send me his address and I will mail him a tuning lever plus some other things. Pre-paying excise duty.

Your suggestion is brilliant.

Even though we often behave like a loose confederation of warring tribes, we can unite to help a colleague.

RXD:

I have been trying to think of a similar situation as Max’s. The closest I can think of was in Zhanjiang, China. On different streets in the city, different craftsman worked. On some streets tin ware was made, on others furniture. On one, electric motors were repaired. Workers would sit out in the open and wind copper wire around their hands and then push them in place the best that they could. I can’t imagine that the results were as good as a modern facility could do, and it would be nothing like a new motor. So should these workers be held in low esteem? NO! They are taking something that is unusable and doing the best they can with what they have. That is how I look at Max’s efforts.

So does anybody have a close connection with Frank to pursue setting up an account for Max? Or maybe someone has another idea.

Absolutely nothing wrong with that - kudos to them! We have similar street industries in some townships here in South Africa. In fact, it constitutes a whole so-called second or third economy.

But Max went one step further.

I do wonder what sort of comments those Chinese armature winders would have garnered if they, similar to what Max did, recorded a video of their efforts, uploaded it to youtube under the title, "The School of the young electrician" and posted it in a (more or less) professional electrician's forum for comments.

OK Jeff, Ok. I saw the mammoth 'no'. You're not shouting at me, are you? I am familiar with your argument but, as you know, it isn't necessary for anything else to be wrong in order for one thing to be right. By the same token, it is not necessary to destroy Max's current skills in order to offer him complemenary ones.

My world is not either or, it's all encompassing as yours seems to be.

I just thought, does the guild offer scholarships to conventions?

Are we possibly being a bit patronising? I don't know.

Let the forum decide and, of course, Max.

RXD:

NO! I am not shouting at you. I am shouting at the elitist attitude of the developed world.

I don’t think we are being patronizing. There has been some very direct criticism.

After reading Doel’s translation (Thanks Doel!), I think Max does comprehend pin manipulation. And when he has a proper tuning hammer I think both his technique and his unisons will improve. I think it is significant that he has somehow tapered the inside of the socket. Maybe he cannot conceive of a usuable eight point tapered socket. Best not to try to read much into the translation.

Max:

I think you try in your videos to teach people in your area how to tune pianos without buying expensive tools. How to make your own tuning hammer for example.

If we give you expensive tools you could work better but you can not teach anyone because the can not afford the tools.

Am I correct?

If you want tools I will add my $50 to the fund Jeff suggested to help you.

Я думаю, вы попробуйте в своих видео, чтобы научить людей в вашем районе, как настроить пианино, не покупая дорогих инструментов. Как сделать свой собственный молот тюнинг для примера.

Если мы дадим вам дорогие инструменты, которые могли бы работать лучше, но вы не можете научить никому, потому что не могут позволить себе инструменты.

Я правильно?

Если вы хотите инструментов я добавлю мои 50 долларов в фонд Джефф предложил, чтобы помочь вам.

Kees

You are right 100%
The Dear piano's tech. THANK YOU SO MUCH. Your care do not know the borders. I love so much our Forum. Our forum solves the primary tasks on repair and usages piano. I for few months has got from You plenty of useful and constructive information though do not know english That tech. have begun to collect donation for Max this it is correct and pleasantly. I to notarize that money to me required for the further development skill. With deep respect, Max

Click on this link for another take on Max's work from the UK - Encourage or not?

Encourage to learn and get proper tools for the job? Absolutely. Encourage more of the same of what was in the video? Nope.

Made a parcel today for Max with a extension lever, tips, mutes and a few other things.
Will find the fastest and most secure way tomorrow to get it shipped to him.

THANKS!!!

Pianolive,

I have been making a few enqiuries, My suppliers say that many times, parcels are held at customs and excise and Max may have to go collect them and pay duties.

Best contact the Kazakhstan Embassy first to check on the best way of circumventing this distinct possibility.

The same thing happens here in UK and I know it does in USA.

Best to check and ask them the best way before sending anything that could get misappropriated.

Rxd,

Thanks.

Yes, I am aware of this and did send a mail to the embassy yesterday. Will call tomorrow.
There are some transport companies which can deliver directly to Max as he seems to live in the western part of the country.

This thread has developed a life of its' own outside pianoworld.

One poster who left this particular thread in disgust is now claiming (on another forum) the moral high ground for attempting to marginalise Max and deprive him of his livelihood. All this under the guise of purifying our profession. (Well, he calls it a trade).

Hasn't history has proven this kind of thinking devastatingly wrong?.

And shamefully, it's a British tuner on a UK forum. "Savages, I tell you" said in the best colonial accent. "Need to be stopped, what?"

Send in a gunboat and a platoon of cavalry!.

Frank!... The British are doing that self depracating humor thing again.... Make 'em stop!

But how would he actually do it? The devil is in the details.

Gentlemen

Hasn't this issue, "Encourage or not?", now been as fully debated on both sides on the pond as it should have been?

In the end actions speak louder than words.

No!!!!, One of the central issues is only just coming to light.

I am currently acting on the situation, so are a few more of us, are you???.

Jeff,

Thats the next question. Who's got the answer and who exactly is this chap that is in the details.

Where are we going and what am I doing in this handbasket?

Another issue that was thrown up (in) was the T hammer thing. I had some lunchtime concerts to tune for last Friday morning and have tuned almost eveything since with a T hammer.... Some 10 year old Kawai RX's (A brand new Shigaru and the new Steinway 9's needed a lever), but the 30 yr old Steinways responded well to the T. By far the best was a 35 yr. old Bosendorfer that I tuned last week for an all Liszt program. A string broke During the concert but the rest of the piano stayed in tune.
I fixt the string and left everything for the week full of many rehearsals and Heavy Jazz things. I tuned again last Friday morning and, with a T hammer was nitpicking the slight noises in the unisons. The T hammer helped me feel the exact set of the pin that I didn't feel with the lever the week before ( I tend towards the self critical). Hopefully It will stay even better this week. The Bosendorfer responded as though it was designed for that tool. Wouldn't use it on a new one, though.

I asked my favorite piano historian about the introduction of the lever for tuning. In Europe, at least, he reckons the move to plate bushings and tighter pinblocks that really took hold some time after WW1. A relatively new interloper, it seems. That's not to say it didn't exist in factories before then. A colleague here tells me that he was not allowed to use a lever until the second year of training and he's a young fella 'bout my age. I don't know about anywhere else.

rxd:

Well, OK then. [btw I hadn't seen Jeff's post]

What central issue do you have in mind? It's not clear, to me at least.

A glib answer to Jeff's question is to civilise the savages. If one should do that at all, should one start in the UK or Kazakhstan?

Your offer of a tuning lever was perfect.

RXD:

It is easy to say that so-and-so should not be in the so-and-so business. But the ugliness of this statement, devilishly, comes out when you try different scenarios to make it happen. The best alternative is to simply state "Let the buyer beware."

If someone disagrees, let's hear a workable, angelic scenario.

As far as the T-handle, I have never used one, but can see the advantages in control. My forearms aren't quite what they were in my Popeye days (24 yrs at sea, much of it on deck), but I often plant my elbow and just use my fingers and wrist to move the hammer. I will have to see what mood I am in next time I place an order.

So...

Where do I send my $50?

Jeff. Yep. Exactly. Even all our best legal minds can't get past ' buyer beware'.

Let me know how you get on with Mr. T. It's surprisingly easy on a suitable piano.

Withindale, That's what makes it central. It keeps on raising another question.

Other central issues are, how easy it is to demonise someone, how we define ourselves by what we're not, evading the question of who we are, the self esteem issues embedded in the need to put another person down in order to (as we think) make oneself look good. The ' guilt by association' of someone who springs to the defence of the one being demonized.

The list goes on.

Ahh... a philosopher

RXD:

You make piano tuning sound simplistic in comparison.

I have here a second hand copy of the Randy Potter Course. While this is not the intensive training that Max would receive in Moscow, I can ship this as a gift to him. That will get him started. I can even blank out the original answers on the exams so he can take them on his own and have then marked here perhaps…..
Can also throw in a few books;Reblitz and a few others.



Rxd can you pm me the address for this person. I can ship prepaid.

rxd, from my brief layman's experience in these forums I'd agree that "buyer beware of ..." and more positively "buyer be aware of ..." are two issues worthy of everyone's attention: tuners and technicians; profession and trade; demonisers and demons; marketeers and lawyers; pianists and teachers.

Rxd can you pm me the address for this person. I can ship prepaid.
[/quote]
Read further back in this thread. where this is covered.
Kz customs and excise can make it that Max might have to travel to pick things up and there may be duties for him to pay.
U
Contact your local Kz embassy or consulate for ways of avoiding this or prepaying duties.

I consider it more appropriate that Max himself gives you his address, don't you? He might also give you further info on this.