Especially to Leo: In many ways I would agree with you and so would most of the members of my chapter of the Washington, D.C. chapter of the PTG. If you could properly tune a piano by throwing it against a wall, and the result pass our tests, you would be welcomed as an RPT in our chapter. I think it is pretty well standard in the PTG, that if you earn money tuning and servicing pianos, we would like to have you in the Piano Technicians Guild. We would invite you into our professional society to learn from your experiences and enable you to learn from ours. In order to recommend your services to the general public, and to recommend you to our dearest clients when we might be unable to personally render piano services, we insist that you be a known quantity. We do that by giving some exams in piano tuning, repair and regulation. We have worked hard over the years to make these exams as standardized as possible and all they really demonstrate is a minimal proficiency that we think someone who is charging money for these services ought to be capable of. Yes, we disagree on some of the things the exams test for, but we all had to take these tests, and more than once in the field, I was grateful that I had to minimally learn a certain skill on the test to keep from looking foolish when it really counted. We would also ask that you practice honest business principles. After all, the PTG wants to establish a standard for piano service, and that is why we organized in the first place. We wanted our members to be thought of as honest and competent by both the general public and the piano manufacturers. There is nothing magic about RPT status - it just means that you subjected your professional skills to peer review. If you were in need of a professional service, and did not know anyone personally in that field, would you not feel more comfortable hiring someone with M.D., CPA or Board Certified attached to their names? Doesn't it make you more comforable knowing that the mechanic who installed the brakes in your car had that ASE certificate displayed in the garage? Are you comfortable with Jiffy Lube servicing your car? Yes, our system is not always perfect, but our association with one another increases our knowlege base, promotes comraderie, establishes a rapport with piano manufacturers, provides opportunities to learn and continue learning this trade, and gives the general public something better than nothing in recommending competent piano service. Yes, it does matter. Carol Beigel, RPT Greenbelt, Maryland
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