Hi Zoe, I was one of the very lucky ones. I am a 3rd generation of techs in my family. I have a cousin, another Groot, that is also 3rd generation. His dad and mine were in business together until his father passed from a heart attack at the age of 49 in 1966. We both still tune full time, but have always run our business separate from one another. I had 3 mentor's, all at the same time. My dad, Jerry Peterson and Harry Buyce. All 3 were RPT's. All 3 have since passed as well. Jerry and Harry used to work at the old Everett Piano factory for many years prior to going out on their own. Their knowledge about pianos was awesome! My dad helped Peterson get his start in Grand Rapids after he moved here from South Haven Michigan because he could see Jerry's potential and knew that Peterson knew darn well, what he was doing. Between the 3 of these guys, I could not have asked for better people to work with or to learn from at the time. All of them were so full of wisdom and information and they were so willing to share it with me! My dad got me started tuning pipe organs with him when I was 10. Man, what a boring job holding keys for a 10 year old!!! He got me started tuning, repairing and other aspects of the piano business when I was 12. Full time as soon as I got out of high school. I will be 54 in May. I'm turning into an old fart. I worked for Peterson part time 2-3 days a week for 6 years rebuilding, installing new hammers, reconditioning, tuning, replacing hammers, whatever he did, I did. I never liked rebuilding though, to time consuming for me, so when I stopped working for Peterson, I pretty much stopped rebuilding too. I prefer regulation, tuning, reconditioning, voicing, trouble shooting, concert work and that sort of thing. When not working for Peterson, I was working with my dad the rest of the time or attending seminar's and conventions. I worked with Harry whenever I could but not quite as often because he lived 60 miles away. I would drive there when I could though when he was rebuilding in his shop just to study with him and to learn more about hammer installation, re-stringing etc. Man, Jerry and Harry could re-string a piano faster than anyone I've ever seen and do such a great job with the coils perfectly lined up even! They would whip those coils around that dummy tuning pin and slap that sucker into the pin block, slam it down, tighten it up and on to the next one in a heart beat! Unbelieveable! They learned that working in the Everett Piano Factory. Each one of these guys were always willing to help me and others as well with any questions or problems that I encountered no matter how dumb the problem or question was. They were filled with more information than I could ever hope for and probably more than I will ever be able to retain. Dad always made me attend every tuners meeting. I still attend most of them. Harry made me attend so many different seminars until we were repeating all of the classes many times! That's when we both cut back on them. I need to go more often again. I usually just set back in this forum and read as there are so many here filled with great information, but I do toss in my two cents worth here and there. Jer Groot RPT From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Zoe Sandell Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2010 11:39 AM To: pianotech at ptg.org Subject: [pianotech] personal question- where did you learn PT? As a current student of Piano Technology, trying to carve out my path of learning on Vancouver Island BC.. I wonder where different people have gained their knowledge. If you would like to share your experience I would be thrilled. because there is so much knowledge and talent on this forum!! Thanks Zoe _____ _____ avast! Antivirus <http://www.avast.com> : Outbound message clean. Virus Database (VPS): 100114-1, 01/14/2010 Tested on: 1/14/2010 6:08:43 PM avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2010 ALWIL Software. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20100114/d11281b8/attachment-0001.htm>
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