Some of you may have been following my very slow progress toward regaining my RPT status. For those who don’t know, the Piano Technicians Guild (PTG) provides structure to the industry of piano maintenance, producing annual national conventions and numerous regional ones that focus on education, training and professional behavior. In an effort to standardize a way of measuring skills, the guild offers RPT status, which stands for Registered Piano Technician. To achieve RPT status, one must pass a series of tests, including a written test, a bench test consisting of 3 parts (grands, uprights and repairs) and a multi part, 4 hour tuning test. I originally achieved RPT status in 1980 but, in a stroke of idiocy, let my membership to the Guild lapse about 10 years ago. Being an Associate has bugged me and I’ve had it in my mind to regain the RPT level if for no

PTG of course is the Piano Technicians Guild and this years convention was held in Grand Rapids Michigan. Grand Rapids is a pain to get to but is a lovely little city with a fantastic convention facility. For the past number of years Ferdinand Braeu, our Technical Director has given a class on Maintaining the Bosendorfer Tone. The class combined theory and hands on voicing and has been well received. Ferdinand couldn’t make it this year due to his being needed at the introduction of the new Audi designed Bosendorfer at Audi headquarters in Germany. The replacement instructor got hung up in Paris with passport problems. It seems that the US introduced a new regulation on July 1 requriing that visitors from europe use a passport with an embedded computer readable chip. It didn’t matter that he was using an otherwise perfectly valid Swiss passport – he couldn’t get on

I’m still a little conflicted about this blog…on one hand the power of a blog is when the writer is completely honest about a topic people care about. The problem is that being completely honest may not be in my best business interest. No, no scandals about Bosendorfer using laminated soundboards. But other observations, experiences that may not look so good in print. On the other hand, nobody seems to be reading this.. I did a PTG presentation in Dayton OH that went, I thought, extremely well.  Not exactly a dynamic group with detailed questions, but they all stayed and stayed awake, which is the first measure of success. I think I do a good job with these tech presentations (“look…that’s a lot of CHALK!!”) and techs are influential, but what I need right now is short term business. The fall selling season still has not started in earnest. Dealers

You could also say this is in the “my eyes were bigger than my stomach” category. I got tool obsessed while at the PTG convention in Kansas City and ordered a bunch of stuff from both Schaff and PianoTek. I’ve known the Johnson brothers at Schaff for decades and prefer them, but they don’t have some of the cooler new stuff PianTek has.  However, man, is PianoTek expensive. Anyway sent in an order to PianoTek without totaling it….$360!! So I had to remove the coolest stuff for now, those key weighting weights in the wooden box, the instant hygrometer and the digital tape measure…damn! I need balance and front rail punchings more.