Marshall, There isn't a magic number.  You'll find as you gain experience that your tuning time will shorten and the tunings, hopefully, will increase in accuracy.  You may notice that many tunings will sort of plateau in quality and then something will "click" and the tunings will jump positively in quality.  Then, you may find you reach another plateau for a while.  This repeats itself over and over.  Once you feel that your temperament, octaves, unisons, etc are pretty good to your ears, have an RPT check your work.  Even better, have an examiner check your work.  I was fortunate in that my mentor was and is an examiner, so he checked my work every week! I think that sped my time up so that I was ready for the exam after a couple hundred tunings.  You may be ready before or after that point.  There is no set number! Keep a log of what you tune, how long it took, and how you think it sounds when you're finished.  I still have mine from 16 years ago and it's fun to see what I did.  Some of the memories make me "LOL out loud" as Monk says! When you reach a plateau you don't particularly like, don't give up!  Keep working at it. Practice makes almost perfect :>) Good Luck! Paul T. Williams RPT <table width=100%> <tr valign=top> <td width=40%>Marshall Gisondi <pianotune05@hotmail.com> Sent by: pianotech-bounces@ptg.org 03/24/2008 12:16 AM <table border> <tr valign=top> <td bgcolor=white> <div align=center>Please respond to Pianotech List <pianotech@ptg.org></div></table> <td width=59%> <table width=100%> <tr valign=top> <td> <div align=right>To</div> <td><pianotech@ptg.org> <tr valign=top> <td> <div align=right>cc</div> <td> <tr valign=top> <td> <div align=right>Subject</div> <td>tuning test</table> <table> <tr valign=top> <td> <td></table> </table> Hi Everyone, I was wondering.  How many pianos roughly of course has everyone here tuned before taking the tuning exam?  Is there a "plateau" where one reaches in his/her tuning career where they read a fictitious sign that reads, "You've tuned x amount of pianos. Now you're ready for the TUNING EXAM! <img src=cid:_1_065375D406537248004A0E4C86257416> Now  I know I have some time to mull over such things while I enjoy my training at the piano hospital, but since the tuning test came up, I thought I'd ask.  Have a good one. Marshall <hr>In a rush? <a href="http://www.windowslive.com/messenger/overview.html?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_Refresh_realtime_042008" target=_new>Get real-time answers with Windows Live Messenger.</a>