I am one of those guys who started out as a kid that loved player
pianos and the rest is history.  That was in the days _before_ Art
Reblitz's book.  I remember how much fun it was for Chris and me to
work on the old three-tier Baldwin, which had been musically still
for years.  Like many other things that had been destroyed in the fire
in 1975, that had robbed me of many personal things, I endeavored to
replace some of them.  Being a novice, my first player wasn't exactly
the best example of rebuilding, and all the pneumatics did not have the
same span.  But you know what?  Chris and I loved and enjoyed that old
player, even if it wasn't considered "top quality" by professionals, it
served it's intended use very well.

I was busy with working on my dad's farm during the years that the
hobby of rebuilding player pianos really got rolling.  Occasionally, I
would come home from the field put in a marimba roll, and pump, hearing
hundreds upon hundreds of repeating notes which rose and fell like an
endless sea surf, an invisible musical wind which swept across our
living room.  You could feel the music in the pedals, and the vibration
of the bass strings in the floor.

The introduction of the automatic piano the early part of this century
swept across this country in waves, crossing class distinctions,
sub-cultures, ethnic groups and political distinctions.  (Ironically,
it still does.)  The player piano is something which is uniquely
American -- like Apple Pie, Mom and the Levy that was Dry. Freedom
of Speech in action -- however well or poorly it may have been used,
or is rebuilt, for that matter.

Even today, I will play our player, on dark lonely nights, for a
reality check that the desire for the musical arts are still there,
another thing that seems to be impoverished in today's world.  One can
criticize a particular arranger or style of music, but the important
thing is that they have and are arranging music, or at least attempting
to.

Player pianos, for all their strengths or weaknesses, are music makers.
There are those who may not like how many people are repairing them,
but no one can say that they have no right to do so and that it
represents wasted efforts.  Like the old piano masters, the novices
keep pumping the old player, trying to figure out how to express
themselves, and looking for ways to find new meaning to their music.

We discuss rebuilding players here in MMD every day, feeling a freedom
to do so that is often, even today, not so easy to do.  If you think
that it is easy to find someone to talk to, just go out on the street,
or to a bar, or the supermarket and say "Hello!" to someone.  Chances
are very good that they will look at you like you're crazy.  Also,
there is a good chance that in their eyes, you are too old, too young,
too fat, too bald, too tall, too short (you get the idea).  I talk to
hundreds of people a year on the web and have no idea of how they look,
or what they do or are, other than what they say to me.  No idea what-
so-ever.  It's like a group of blind people sitting around in chairs
talking to each other.  But, blind to what?

One of the more distasteful aspects of our field is the idea that what
we are, or what we do, grants us some kind of "elevation" with respect
to other people.  Some how, by doing "X" we are elevated -- made more
significant, more important, if you will.  It is an idea that has been
seeded deeply into our culture, our societies, our clubs and ourselves.
It is not enough to simply _be_, we must be _something_.  Strange isn't
it?  Somehow we are deficient simply by being ourselves.  I wonder why
that is?

So, we go forth and strive and do, and in so doing become associated
with that which we are doing and merge with that, in the attempt to 'be
something'.

When someone asks me that question, say, at a party, I respond, "I am
a Person!"  I am long years beyond being a farmer or an engineer or
a mechanic, or any of those things.  But, I can do any of them if my
situation calls for it.  But I am not any of those things if I am not
doing them.  At the moment, I am a writer, for whatever that's worth.

My experience has taught me that no one ever got an inch higher in his
own eyes by standing on somebody else's back, or their reputation or
lack of one, or putting them down.  In fact, in recent times, I have
discovered that I don't even have to stand on my own back or reputa-
tion, and what a relief that is!

The interesting part of this whole "elevation" thing is that this
evaluation does not cross occupational paths very well.  A baker does
not have any "elevation" to a plumber.  A plumber has no elevation
to an engineer, an engineer has no elevation to an astronaut.  A
photographer has no elevation to a world class athlete. Get it?  The
player techs have no "elevation" in the eyes of many professional
tuners, who have nice endorsements, which allow them to do something
as a privilege that they should be able to do as a RIGHT, in a 
"Free Society", in the first place!

Interesting!

Yet, this accomplishment gives them elevation in their own eyes.  But,
I wonder if a music arranger has as much elevation as a technical
worker, or does an player tech have as much as either?  Hmmmm?

When I write some articles here, I am advised by other techs that I
have been wrong at times (as if I didn't discover it later on). And,
one can just feel the elevation they are experiencing, because in their
eyes, their phoo-phooing gives them elevation over me.  For just a
brief moment they can be better than someone else, and think, "Well,
I set that guy straight, by golly!"

No, if he gets "straight," it will be by his own efforts, not someone
else's efforts, but his efforts.

"Every man puts his pants on the same way!"  Ever heard that one?  We
all have been created equal in the eyes of the Creator, but after that
we seem to need elevation to maintain a parity of elevation with our
peers.  Otherwise, we feel like are sliding backwards.  Sort of a "Keep
up with the Jones" situation.

Parity of Elevation -- now there is a concept for you!

"Well, I worked hard to get my endorsement.  I bought a book and
read it, went down and took a test and passed it.  I didn't get my
endorsement out of a box of Cracker-Jacks -- I earned it!"

True, all true.  but it doesn't give you a right to mistreat anyone.

If one looks at any Human Endeavor, one will find sundry routes into
that endeavor which interested people can take.  Rarely is there a
"preferred" route of entrance for the true player enthusiast.  What is
important is that the person has arrived.  The path is his business,
his life, his way, so to say.  Like many other hobbies that have been
around for a long time, "Player Tech" has its price of admission.  For
some people, that price is too high, and they won't post anything they
have learned for fear of the "snipers".  For others, it is a spring
board to vent much criticism if someone remotely disagrees.  So what if
_some_ of the novices attempt to rebuild their old player and do it
wrong?  The exercise of "Territorial Imperative" is not an adequate way
to deal with it anyway.  It won't kill us to refrain from putting this
person down, and offer a helping hand.

Peer pressure can move mountains, but, first one has to have peers.
And it is not the pressure of the peer group which causes compliance
with the group, it is the want of respect.  And, nobody ever won
respect from someone else through ostracism, cohesion, defamation or
through disrespect.  These things can only lead to war on one level
or another.

A last comment is that, if a person makes the attempt to drive another
person down to lower states of being, it is he that is actually driven
down, and becomes his own enemy.  And, when a person makes the attempt
to raise some one to higher states of being, they are both risen in the
process.  And, this is the real stuff of what some might call Progress
-- the process by which _all_ player rebuilding is"elevated" to higher
states of accomplishment.

Andrew T. Taylor
Tempola Music Rolls