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The PTG is a not for profit association of piano technicians. Based in Kansas City, KS, the PTG has members throughout the USA and Canada and some members in other countries. The PTG has two major functions: to provide education for professional piano technicians and to operate an examinations program to qualify technicians as Registered Piano Technicians (RPT). PTG's educational offerings include the monthly Piano Technicians Journal, a technical magazine covering all phases of working on pianos; and conventions and seminars with institutes on technical subjects. PTG runs a comprehensive examinations program. Since piano tuning is not a licensed profession, PTG has set up voluntary standards of quality of workmanship and examinations to test for them. Examinations cover tuning, regulation of actions, and repairs, as well as a basic knowledge of piano building and design. Only after examinees have passed these tests can they identify themselves as Registered Piano Technicians (RPT). With over 4,000 members throughout the world, PTG is an important force in the piano industry.
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Pianoforte and Musical Pitch
The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edition, published in 1911 contains two wonderful articles of interest to piano technicians. The first is titled "Pianoforte", and is pretty much a history of the piano starting with the Pythagorean monochord, working its way through the introduction of iron into the pianoforte, and then gradually working its way through to the Apollo player piano in 1900. Lots of very detailed engravings and footnotes as well as a full column of references. The article runs 16 pages.
The second article is titled "Musical Pitch". It starts by defining what pitch actually means and includes a very good history on everything you ever wanted to know about "A4" and its theoretical standard frequency. Includes a number of tables documenting what pitch was used when, and who the authority was. Also talks about what standards some piano manufactures chose. This article runs 4 pages.
Both articles are available free for the download. The Encyclopedia Britannica informed me that the entire edition is long out of copyright and gladly gave me permission to share it. Both articles have been carefully scanned at high print resolution, cleaned up and combined into a single .pdf file, (Acrobat Reader), for convenience.
Instructions:
: To view only, click the link once.
: TO DOWNLOAD, right click on the link and then select "Save target as..."
: Special dial-up Warning: This is a very large file and will take close to 2 minutes to download using DSL
Download PianoForte.pdf (about 20 MB)
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Links to useful stuff
Piano Technicians Guild
www.ptg.org
Music Teachers Association of California
www.mtac.org
Music Teachers National Association
www.mtna.org
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