This is a complete course in piano tuning, repairing, regulating, voicing, apprentice training and business practices for beginning students, and intermediate and advanced piano technicians.

Your notebook, over 1,000 pages long, contains the written material for the course. There are ten additional texts and many manufacturers technical service manuals, pianos brochures, supplier catalogs and a number of other pamphlets and brochures which you will study. Six two-hour video tapes, which teach and illustrate tuning, repairing, regulating and voicing techniques, are also included. These tapes allow you to see tuning, repairing and regulating procedures being performed by Registered Piano Technician Members of the Piano Technicians Guild.

During tuning lessons you will practice the tuning exercises at your piano. When you have questions you can turn on your TV and watch George Defebaugh, Jim Coleman or Randy Potter, all Registered Piano Technicians, guide you through each step. The video tapes are yours to keep, and review as often as you like. Later, when you do your tuning assignments on your tape recorder (or with a video camera, if you like), Randy will offer a critique and often do additional tuning demonstrations on your tape.

Repair lessons teach actual skills and repair techniques you will perform in client's homes as a piano technician. We supply the tools, plus practice parts and repair supplies. After reading the lesson in your notebook, and the auxiliary texts, you can watch many of the repairs being performed by competent technicians, using the same tools, parts and supplies you received with your course.

During the regulating lessons you will learn the processes you will use on even the most discriminating client's piano. You will use your own regulating tools, and the Vertical Action Model, which are provided with your course, before trying these techniques on someone else's piano. References in the course notebook to specific parts can be easily identified on the wall charts, also provided.

The Apprentice Training Manual, an integral part of the course, was written by Randy Potter to help students chart and plan their progress towards becoming a competent piano technician. It is the only such manual available in our industry to student technicians.

The Mentoring Book: How To Be A Mentor - How to Be An Apprentice, is a guide to setting up a Mentorship - Apprenticeship Program that works. The mentoring - apprenticing concept has been an integral part in the course since its inception, and Randy has worked with hundreds of technicians who have taken our students as their apprentices. Randy recently spent a year working on a new book, which was added to the course in mid-2003. It is designed to help students get a "casual" apprenticeship with a local, or technicians, and has already been heralded as a success.

Much of the section on Business Practices was originally written as short articles for The Sounding Board, the newsletter of the Portland, Oregon Chapter of the Piano Technicians Guild (which Randy edited for over four years), or for teaching business classes at many of the PTG conventions Randy teaches at each year. The Accounting and Taxes section was developed with the help of several professionals, including C.P.A.s, Licensed Tax Consultants, Enrolled Agents and a couple different Management Consultants. Over the past 20+ years Randy has taught many of these portions of the course at local, state, regional and national PTG conventions. He has been a regular instructor at the Annual PTG Convention and Technical Institute, held each summer, for the past 17 years, and is regularly asked to teach at piano technicians seminars in Europe and Asia.

The section on suppliers includes not only a comprehensive list of suppliers, but of manufacturers as well. Those listed include the major parts suppliers, plus many of the smaller companies who provide specialized technician's tools, parts and supplies. A complete listing of manufacturers, their technical service personnel and unadvertised 800 numbers specifically for technicians to get technical and warranty information is included.

Several piano manufacturers have sent us their piano brochures and technical manuals in the interest of aiding our students to become familiar with what products are available in the marketplace today. As you begin servicing pianos in homes, schools and institutions you will see many of these instruments. Many of your clients will ask for your opinion on various pianos. The more familiar you are with the features and qualities of each piano, the better able you will be to provide adequate service and recommendations. In fact, one of the lessons in the Business Practices section shows how you may use these very brochures doing appraisals and purchase consults with your clients.

Students receive the school's newsletter, published semi-annually, for two years after enrollment. (This is now published on our web page.) This includes updated technical, manufacturer and supplier information, and notices of conventions for piano technicians throughout North America, Europe and Asia, including those Randy will be teaching at and/or attending. It also includes our current office hours and days, so you can catch us in the office if you want to call with questions instead of writing. We also keep students updated monthly via our TunEmaiList, available only to our students, graduates and technical advisors.