<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML xmlns:o = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2900.3132" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Cliff - my experience with the Potter course closely mirrors yours. I sent in my first one or two lessons/tapes and never heard a word. I gave up with that approach at that point. I decided to skip the correspondence and simply worked my way through the course on my own.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>My experience with that approach was that it only held me up in one area - aural tuning.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I agree with you that the course text could have been a lot shorter - I'll bet 50% of the text could be deleted. I mean, of course, if I were a female technician I would want to know that I should keep a pair of work pants in the car so that I could change out of my dress and into work pants if I need to adust some trapwork or something in the lower bowels of the piano. But I'm not, and I really did find the reading a bit frustrating because of all the "touchy feelies" addressed (I actually have some more pointed comments of these, but I choose to keep them to myself).</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>That being said, I still recommend the Randy Potter course as it is very thorough and up to date. The high quality meat is there, but you do have to wade through the moat to get to it. Oh, and you may need to, or prefer to, do it on your own.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Terry Farrell</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Farrell Piano</FONT></DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Not too long ago, I received my diploma 7 years, 7 months after having sent the final tuning tape.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>On the plus side, I became an RPT 7 years, 2 months before the diploma came.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>As far as I'm concerned, the course was just an expensive book that could have been a lot shorter.  It has good information though (plus some tools and other touchy feelys) and is probably the best way to get started if you can't go to a residence school.  Forget the correspondence.  It's just a nuisance unless you have a lot of patience and are very young.</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Cliff Lesher</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>WInfield, PA</FONT></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>