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• Don't Blame the Tools - Don't Blame the Tools


One day I was sitting at our electric piano, pecking around, I'm not a real piano player,
and found a couple of notes that were out of tune.
I turned to my wife to complain that it needed tuning and that was the reason it sounded like I was making a mistake each time I came to that part of the tune I was trying to play.

She said to me, "In Korea there is a famous expression used for just this situation."

I'm thinking, oh, electric piano tuning is a common topic in Korea?

She says "The bad carpenter always blames his tools."

I thought, like maybe you are now, "Huh?"

She said when someone makes a mistake, they should just admit it, but the 'bad carpenter' always says his tools caused the problem, not his skills.

Hmmmm.

In my case, I've told a variation of this often to my students, but it was the first time I'd had it said _to_ me.

They buy books, tapes, software, and more, then complain that it didn't really help them. They also almost always say they've not really put much effort into finding the 'good' in the tools.

How many times have I come up a bit short, made a mistake, or didn't have the outcome I was looking for and then 'blamed the tools'? How about you?

Yes, some tools are faulty, but I've heard masterful music from that same piano, even though it is a bit out of tune.

It's easy in marketing to blame the tools, when we know, if we're honest to ourselves, that we've not really applied ourselves to and with the tool to the best of our ability.

Yes, some tools are faulty, but sometimes we just need to look for the good, use it, really use it, and go on.

I don't think you hear many good carpenters saying
"It only came out great because I have the best tools."

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