Getting started...

[Ken Hale]

On 15 Nov 95 at 8:30, Matthew Osborn wrote Getting started...:

Hi Mathew,

Lots of good questions here.

> The PTG sent me a list of resources on a "Piano Technology Education and
> Training list (thanks to them, by the way, for that :) ).  I've started
> getting information from some of these places, and I would appreciate
> any helpful comments some of you experiences technicians might be able to
> make -- what are some good ways to get started?

Not in any particular order. Find a store or piano rental business
and start doing floor tunings, join your PTG chapter, go to the Pace
Classes, connect with a few technicians who are willing to show you
how to tune or answer questions, work in a shop as a low paid
apprentice sweeping floors and listen to the owner or other
technicians talk to each other or on the phone to clients, buy books
suggested by folks in the chapter, take out the chapter's library
books, read the Piano Technicians Journal, buy a used piano and start
practicing tuning, 30min to 2 hours a day (octaves, unisons,
temperament, intervals), do some ear training, listen to records (CDs
these days), carry a 440 tuning fork around and rind it in your ear a
few hundred times a day. Hmm, I am sure there are other things you can
do, but I will move to the other part of your post.


 > The booklet from the North Bennet Street School
looked really > great, romantic even <G>... but coming up with
$10,000 plus living > expenses for a year would be a real challenge.
> The material from the Randy Potter School, correspondence course >
seems pretty persuasive; and of course it's a lot easier to pay for.
> Could a person *really* be a practicing, client-pleasing
technician, > ready to attain professional credentials, after using
this course?

No, I don't think so. I do not know the particulars of the schools,
but it is like any school, you can learn the basics and then have to
get a job to really be able to put it to practice. I am sure they
are great places to start and you can learn a lot. A person
continues to learn, hopefully all their life. Tuning a piano is so
much more than twisting pins or being knowledgeable about music.

 > I'm still waiting for some other places to send
information, but > in the meantime, what advice could you give to
someone interested in > learning the craft?

If you really want to learn piano tuning, stick with it. I believe I
once heard that the profession is one of the highest in job
satisfaction and I can vouch for that. I started learning woodwind
repair in a shop and was hooked by the owner telling me that the
instrument repair person is one of the most highly thought of people
in town. To be able to interact with folks at home and pianists on
the concert stage, around the piano and music, is still a joy for me.

Good luck,


Ken Hale

khale@oro.net
CIS 74633,2474