I'd like to respond to a couple of statements in Mike McCoy's posting
about the PTG.  To say that each chapter has their own membership
requirements gives a misleading impression of arbitrariness.

When you join the PTG you become a member of the _national_ organization,
which has uniform requirements nationwide.  You also are admitted to
membership in a chapter near where you live, but that's a 'subordinate
body' to the national organization, and there are normally no
additional requirements for chapter membership.  Chapters are allowed
to have their own bylaws, but those are generally procedural, and they
can't make rules or requirements that conflict with those of the
national organization.

I think it also gives a false impression to say that someone who has
passed the RPT examinations "may have been applying these skills for
only two days".   It takes years of study and practice to achieve a
level of competence sufficient to pass this rigorous battery of tests.
Most piano technicians will agree that you must tune 500 to 1000 pianos
before you can consider yourself a competent piano tuner.

The knowledge and practical experience necessary to properly regulate
and repair pianos are equally demanding and for most people it takes
hundreds of hours to master the skills needed to pass these tests.  The
PTG continually reviews and upgrades the standards and requirements for
the RPT exams.

Larry Lobel - Virtuoso Piano Service
Petaluma, California