RSSPhotos from Nov. Class with Matthew Banks
Nov 12
Workshop Comments Off on Photos from Nov. Class with Matthew Banks
Here are some photos from the Nov. class with Matthew Banks
November 2024 All Day Regulation Class
Oct 30
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Chapter Meeting:
Technical Program:
Grand Piano Regulation and Voicing
Date: Saturday, November 9, 2024
Time: 9:am to 4:30 pm
** Please confirm your attendance by Wednesday, November 6th to be included for lunch.
Location:
North United Methodist Church
3808 N Meridian St
Indianapolis, IN 46208
Description:
Welcome to Matthew Banks, Concert Technician, Indiana University
Matthew Banks has had the privilege of working as a concert piano technician at Steinway & Sons in New York, where he also taught piano building at the Steinway factory. During his time at Steinway, he worked on pianos at prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Alice Tully Hall, and Madison Square Garden. Matthew worked with hundreds of Steinway Artists to meet their needs. He later served as the Head Technician at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music before becoming Chief Technician at Faust Harrison Pianos. Matthew has spent several summers as a concert technician at the Aspen Music Festival. Currently, he is a concert technician at the Jacobs School of Music. Specializing in concert piano preparation, Matthew is dedicated to ensuring that each instrument is performance-ready at the highest level, maintaining a commitment to craftsmanship that brings out the best in both the instruments and the artists.
Calendar for Fall 2024 – Spring 2025
Sep 13
Chapter Meetings Comments Off on Calendar for Fall 2024 – Spring 2025
Here is our Fall 2024 – Spring 2025 calendar.
Indy PTG Chapter Meetings: Generally, the 2nd Tuesday of the month 7:00 pm (with some exceptions as per special events, as below)
October 8, 2024, 7:00 pm
- Chapter meeting:
- Technical Discussion: Floating Pitch above and below A440 hz / Pitch Raising
- Location: Piano Warehouse of Indianapolis, 8509 Zionsville Rd, Indianapolis, IN 46268
November 9, 2024, All Day Saturday
- Chapter meeting:
- Technical Discussion: Concert Prep & Tuning with Matthew Banks
- Location: TBD
December 2, 2024, Chapter Christmas Party
- Dinner and White Elephant Gift Exchange
- Location: Jazz Kitchen
January 14, 2025, 7:00 pm
- Chapter meeting:
- Technical Discussion:
- Location: TBD
February 11, 2025, 7:00 pm
- Chapter meeting:
- Technical Discussion:
- Location: TBD
March 5-8, 2025 – 2025 South Central Regional Conference (SCRC)
- SCRC Home (scrcptg.org)
- Location: Waco, TX
March 11, 2025, 7:00 pm
- Chapter meeting:
- Technical Discussion:
- Location: TBD
April 8, 2025, 7:00 pm
- Chapter meeting:
- Technical Discussion:
- Location: TBD
May 13, 2025, 7:00 pm – Chapter Elections
- Chapter meeting:
- Technical Discussion:
- Location: TBD
June 10, 2025, 7:00 pm
- Chapter meeting:
- Technical Discussion:
- Location: TBD
July 16-19, 2025 – 2025 PTG Convention and Technical Institute
- Location: Des Moines, IA
July ??, 2026 – 2026 PTG Convention and Technical Institute
- Location: Arlington, VA (Washington D.C.)
Chapter Picnic, Aug 11th
Aug 01
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Chapter Picnic, Sunday Aug. 11th 1:00 pm
At Doug Dale’s
13254 Cumberland Rd.
Fishers, IN 46038
I hope you’ve been having a good summer so far. For anyone who travelled to Reno for the convention this year, I hope it wasn’t too hot and there were good classes. The Midwest conference in Kansas City is coming up soon now! (Sept 20-22nd, early registration ends Aug 31st)
We have a picnic coming up soon. Please bring a side dish and an extra chair if you have one. The chapter will provide soft drinks and the main course. As always, spouses and kids are welcome too. Please reply if you are planning to attend.
I think we are a great chapter and I hope we can continue supporting and sharing ideas with each other. I am looking forward to seeing you all there!
Warmly,
—
Elizabeth Rochow, RPT
All Day Regulation Class
Jul 09
Workshop Comments Off on All Day Regulation Class
“Understanding Grand Piano Regulation” with Jim Geiger, RPT, Waco TX
** If you can’t make the PTG Annual Convention and Technical Conference, try to make this local event during the same week.
Registration is free and open to PTG members and non-member piano technicians.
Date: Friday, July 19, 2024
Time: 9am to 4:30pm ET
Location:
North United Methodist Church
3808 N. Meridian Street
Indianapolis, IN 46208
Description:
For those who haven’t met Jim – he brings vast knowledge and experience as a piano technician in all areas of piano work. Jim has been an instructor at many PTG national conventions and regional conferences – all in all an exceptional teacher. Jim is also a long time College & University technician with a busy full time piano service business in north central Texas.
Please RSVP by Thursday July 18th with Lisa Londe, Cell # 317-752-4308 (call or text). Email: lclonde@aol.com
Photos May 2024 Chapter Meeting
May 15
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Sale Items from Jack Kirkland
Apr 27
Sale Comments Off on Sale Items from Jack Kirkland
Here are images of items that will be for sale from Jack Kirkland
Sale date: Sunday, May 5th from 1-5pm
Location: 5840 Ralston, Indianapolis, IN (near Broad ripple)
May 2024 Chapter Meeting
Apr 19
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Chapter Meeting:
Chapter Elections – If anyone is interested in serving as a chapter officer, nominations are open.
Technical Program:
Installing new hammers and/or reconditioning the damper system
Date: Tuesday, April 14, 2024
Time: 7:00 pm
Location:
Winter & Sons Piano Shop
9600 County Road 525 E, Indianapolis, IN 46259
(If directions are needed please contact Seth at 317-363-1931)
Description:
Join us at Winter & Sons Piano Shop to discuss hammer installation and/or reconditioning of damper system.
April 2024 Chapter Meeting
Apr 05
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Technical Program:
PianoSens: New technology in electronic tuning — Innovative piano string sensor for ETD’s.
Seven Norsworthy
Date: Tuesday, April 9, 2024
Time: 7:00 pm
Location:
Zoom Meeting
Description:
An overview and demonstration of the PianoSens electronic tuning sensor
2024 Southeast Regional Conference Review
Mar 12
Journal Comments Off on 2024 Southeast Regional Conference Review
** Draft copy of upcoming PTG Journal Article **
2024 Southeast Regional Conference Review
By Michael Pitts, Indianapolis IN Chapter
You never know where you might end up. In my case, I’ve moved from over 30 years in information technology (IT) to deciding to start a second career as a piano technician.
I have a small musical resume: Growing up in a musical family (my Mom played piano for church), I started piano lessons starting at age five and played saxophone from fifth grade through college. So, I have had music in most of my life. In early 2023, I made the choice to “Live a consistently musical life!” (credit to Adam Maness of Open Studio for stating this on the “You’ll Hear It” podcast) and started playing piano again. By December, I found myself wanting something different than IT work and fell into the idea of becoming a piano technician.
In January 2024, I started my piano technician journey by signing up with the Piano Technicians Guild, starting the online Piano Tuning and Repairs course from the Piano Technician Academy (PTA), attending an all-day PACE Repairs workshop organized by the St. Louis MO chapter, and getting a 1918 Thompson Piano, built in Chicago, free from Facebook Marketplace, to work on.
While looking through the educational materials on the PTG website, I found the Events page, which listed the Southeast Regional Conference (SERC) in Jacksonville, Florida, and thought it would be very valuable in starting my training due to the number of classes and other interesting activities. I was intrigued by Maggie Jusiel, RPT’s classes on “Music Theory for Piano Tuners,” Tim Barnes, RPT’s class on Gazelle, and the hands-on activities in the PTG Playground. I jumped in head-first, getting flights, hotel room, and solidifying plans to attend.
After landing in Jacksonville and getting checked into my room, I met Wim Blees, RPT, who was pleased to see a first timer. The next day, early in the morning after breakfast, I met John Parham, RPT, who was part of group leading the PTG Playground, and who encouraged me to complete as many stations as possible. On Parham’s advice, I changed my morning schedule to stay in the Playground until lunch. I ended up completing six stations, including Creating Tuning Coils, String Splicing, and the Vertical Damper stations.
After lunch, I attended the class, “Preparing for the PTG Written Exam,” with Ricki Klos, RPT. This discussion helped get information on what information I need to be studying as foundational material and basics as a piano technician.
At the end of the first day, I saw an overview of the Gazelle software with RPTs Tim Barnes and Luke Ehresman. As an IT guy, I was very impressed with the platform Tim and Luke have developed to assist in documenting customer data, and especially the automated notifications about next tuning and appointment reminders. For a first day, I had a wonderful time digging into technical hands-on tasks, foundational piano technician study, and how to think about customer interactions though a software platform.
For day two, I spent my morning with Maggie Jusiel, and her class, “Music Theory/Applications for Piano Tuning.” This class was broken up into two sessions, with the first half more theory, and the second practical applications. Some of Maggie’s presentation brought back my college engineering courses from years ago, which talked about frequency, harmonics, and nodes. We next moved into partial sequences and how partials match up in octaves, fifths, fourths, etc. During the second half, I learned about how to use the coincidental partial comparisons as aural tuning tools that Maggie expanded upon. This method uses check notes to compare the beat speeds between intervals, i.e., M3 to M10, m3 to M6, etc.
By the end of the two sessions, my brain was full of music theory and coincidental partials. While I’ll need to go back and review this many times, Maggie’s classes gave me a wealth of information about tuning and the aural tuning tools to use to get to a solid tuning.
After lunch and letting my brain cool down from music theory, I went back to the Playground to continue my hands-on activities. I completed four more stations, including Hitch Pin Loops, Vertical Action Aftertouch, Measuring Bass Strings, and the second Vertical Damper Adjustment station. I really enjoyed working through the station on hitch pin loops, which utilized electrical wire to practice making the make the coils tail correctly. The station on making tuning pin coils was also very helpful.
Day three started with Wim Blees’s discussion about pitch raising, and what is/is not a pitch raise. I especially enjoyed his description of a comparison of two pianos. One needed a basic tuning and the other needed a pitch raise. The test was to see how the pitch raise would hold over time after a single tuning compared to the regular tuning on the other piano. Wim’s results with the two pianos were fascinating. Not only did the pitch raise hold, it even held after the piano was moved to a new house.
Right before lunch, I went back to the PTG Playground to complete the Grand Aftertouch and Grand Damper Alignment stations. I spent the most time on the Grand Damper Alignment station, the last station for me, and it was fascinating to see what wire bends and rotational alignments were needed to get the damper to move smooth and straight. Part 1 wasn’t too bad’ only slight adjustments to the wire to get it aligned. However, Part 2 needed a full overhaul. The Playground leads had mis-bent the damper wire everywhere. These were extremely challenging to get back into shape.
In Emily Townsend, RPT’s class, “The Comma of Pythagoras,” we delved into partials, interval relationships, and why some intervals are tuned wide and some narrow. The class listened to three recording of the same music and had to guess which was equal temperament, quarter meantone, or Prelleur’s temperament. The tonalites were very different, and it was great to hear different historical temperaments from the same performer/piece of music.
The highlight of the closing banquets was a piano performance by Dr. Erin Bennet from University of North Florida, whose program of Schubert, Price, and Reinhardt was dynamic and lyrical.
I can’t give enough to thanks to everyone that I met. I definitely want to thank Bill, John, Joel, and Dale in the PTG Playground. Their encouragements and quiet guidance were major highlights for me during the event. I can’t say enough good things about how much benefit the Playground gives, especially for someone new.
The SERC was a wonderful way to build new skills, learn new things, and most importantly, meet others on their own piano technician journey. While I have much to practice, the knowledge gained at the conference will build a strong foundation for my future piano technician career. Who knows where I might end up next — maybe in Reno Nevada at the PTG National Convention?