Wanting to become a Piano Technician

[Kevin Cook]

Greetings Folks,

I just joined this list because I am wanting to become a Piano 
Technician. I have ordered material to try to eventually become an 
associate member of PTG.   I live in a rural part of Texas with no way 
of learning from others but I should receive Randy Potter's course 
material that I ordered in a day or so.

I have some piano tech tools that I purchased a couple of years ago but 
only used them on this old upright until I broke one of the strings on 
the high C.  I don't really know what I'm doing. This piano says 
"Wilson & Sons Piano Co. Muncie Ind. 1886".  It came out of a barn and 
I had to clean out the mud dobber nest and spiders.  The pedal board is 
rotted from water damage and several keys aren't working.  I figured it 
could be my experimental learning piano since it is probably a junker 
anyway.

Here's a story that I know will probably have many of you cringing.  
Yesterday, I figured to heck with it and decided to tune it not knowing 
a thing about tuning pianos.  I used a chromatic tuner and noticed that 
it was nearly a 1/2 step low.  I decided to tune it to A440.  I started 
with middle C (middle string) using the tuner and then matched the 
unisons by ear.  I worked my way up the C's then did the same on all 
the C's working down.  I repeated this process  going through the 
circle of 5ths ( first all the G's then all the D's.... A's  etc).  The 
tuner would not pick up the highest octave or the lowest so I had to do 
those by ear.  It took me several hours to finish and luckily I didn't 
break any strings.  It really don't sound that bad now.

Maybe I should rebuild this piano as a learning experience.  It only 
has sentimental value (It belonged to my mother-in-law).

Anyway, enough yacking.......Anybody here learn to become a piano tech 
by correspondence course?  Can I learn that way?  I have been a 
musician for 30 years and have a Bachelor of Music degree but I don't 
know if that helps that much.  Is it a good idea to experiment on this 
old upright and try everything on it?  Any pointers to get me started 
in the right direction?  Thank you so much for your advice....I have 
thinking about doing this for many years.

Best Regards
Kevin Cook
http://coyotedream.com