Pianotech

I was going to name most of what you already have, LOL. Instead of the Pierce Piano Atlas, I use the Online Piano Atlas, which costs $5 a year and is easily accessible on my phone. Additionally, I believe it's updated once a quarter (?) instead of once every seven years. (Journal editors, don't quote me on that, LOL.)

One category of learning that's important to remember is business. If one neglects to learn best practices for running a business, it doesn't matter how good of a technician one is - he or she may end up broke and / or extremely stressed out. Here are my personal recommendations for business books.

-Donald Miller's Business Made Simple and Building a StoryBrand
-Dave Ramsey's Entreleadership
-Horst Schulze's Excellence Wins (probably my absolute favorite business book)
-Seth Godin's Purple Cow, We Are All Weird, and Tribes

And specific to the piano industry:

-Berry Bradshaw's How to Make $200,000 a Year Tuning Pianos
-Wim Blees' The Business of Piano Tuning

There are a lot more good business books out there, but these are my favorites.

I was going to name most of what you already have, LOL. Instead of the Pierce Piano Atlas, I use the Online Piano Atlas, which costs $5 a year and is easily accessible on my phone. Additionally, I believe it's updated once a quarter (?) instead of once every seven years. (Journal editors, don't quote me on that, LOL.)

One category of learning that's important to remember is business. If one neglects to learn best practices for running a business, it doesn't matter how good of a technician one is - he or she may end up broke and / or extremely stressed out. Here are my personal recommendations for business books.

-Donald Miller's Business Made Simple and Building a StoryBrand
-Dave Ramsey's Entreleadership
-Horst Schulze's Excellence Wins (probably my absolute favorite business book)
-Seth Godin's Purple Cow, We Are All Weird, and Tribes

And specific to the piano industry:

-Berry Bradshaw's How to Make $200,000 a Year Tuning Pianos
-Wim Blees' The Business of Piano Tuning

There are a lot more good business books out there, but these are my favorites.

Shame on us, Del, for not mentioning that book. And thanks for you work in bringing this valuable, 100-y-o "time capsule" forward into the 21st Century. (I had an earlier, soft-cover print of this, whose binding glue later turned brittle, dooming the book.)

Two more additions:
"Piano Tuning, a Simple and Accurate Method for Amateurs" J. Cree Fischer (a Dover reprint of the 1907 original)
"The Modern Piano" Lawrence M. Nadler ( Unwin Bros. [U.K.] reprint of the 1927 original. The forward refers to another book detailing piano design/construction, "Art of Pianoforte Construction" by Wolfenden, 1916. I may have bought both of these on a visit to Fletcher&Newman [London] in '78, but now can only fond he former.)

------------------------------
William Ballard RPT
WBPS
Saxtons River VT
802-869-9107

"Our lives contain a thousand springs
and dies if one be gone
Strange that a harp of a thousand strings
should keep in tune so long."
...........Dr. Watts, "The Continental Harmony,1774
+++++++++++++++++++++
------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 06-11-2022 01:16
From: Delwin Fandrich
Subject: What's on your bookshelf?

I would be remis if I didn't suggest "Piano Tone Building."

ddf

------------------------------
[Delwin D] Fandrich] [RPT]
[Piano Design & Manufacturing Consultant]
[Fandrich Piano Co., Inc.]
[Olympia] [WA]
[360-515-0119]


Original Message:
Sent: 06-10-2022 14:49
From: Benjamin Bradley
Subject: What's on your bookshelf?

New Techniques for Superior Aural Tuning by Virgil Smith.

Regrettably this appears to have gone out of print a few years ago,
and as it was ssurely a small print run aimed at the rather small
audience of piano tuners who tend to keep their books, used copies for
sale are very hard to find.

One of the big points he makes is that the beat you hear while tuning
is not necessarily the mathematical difference in pitches of the
fundamentals or harmonics, but often some sort of amalgam of those
beats.

I've read the local chapter's copy of Levitan's book and it's
certainly much larger and more complete (I recall about half the book
is on hammer technique, Smith has only a few paragraphs), but I still
think Smith's book has some good nuggets not found elsewhere.

Shame on us, Del, for not mentioning that book. And thanks for you work in bringing this valuable, 100-y-o "time capsule" forward into the 21st Century. (I had an earlier, soft-cover print of this, whose binding glue later turned brittle, dooming the book.)

Two more additions:
"Piano Tuning, a Simple and Accurate Method for Amateurs" J. Cree Fischer (a Dover reprint of the 1907 original)
"The Modern Piano" Lawrence M. Nadler ( Unwin Bros. [U.K.] reprint of the 1927 original. The forward refers to another book detailing piano design/construction, "Art of Pianoforte Construction" by Wolfenden, 1916. I may have bought both of these on a visit to Fletcher&Newman [London] in '78, but now can only fond he former.)

------------------------------
William Ballard RPT
WBPS
Saxtons River VT
802-869-9107

"Our lives contain a thousand springs
and dies if one be gone
Strange that a harp of a thousand strings
should keep in tune so long."
...........Dr. Watts, "The Continental Harmony,1774
+++++++++++++++++++++
------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 06-11-2022 01:16
From: Delwin Fandrich
Subject: What's on your bookshelf?

I would be remis if I didn't suggest "Piano Tone Building."

ddf

------------------------------
[Delwin D] Fandrich] [RPT]
[Piano Design & Manufacturing Consultant]
[Fandrich Piano Co., Inc.]
[Olympia] [WA]
[360-515-0119]

Shame on us, Del, for not mentioning that book. And thanks for you work in bringing this valuable, 100-y-o "time capsule" forward into the 21st Century. (I had an earlier, soft-cover print of this, whose binding glue later turned brittle, dooming the book.)

Two more additions:
"Piano Tuning, a Simple and Accurate Method for Amateurs" J. Cree Fischer (a Dover reprint of the 1907 original)
"The Modern Piano" Lawrence M. Nadler ( Unwin Bros. [U.K.] reprint of the 1927 original. The forward refers to another book detailing piano design/construction, "Art of Pianoforte Construction" by Wolfenden, 1916. I may have bought both of these on a visit to Fletcher&Newman [London] in '78, but now can only fond he former.)

------------------------------
William Ballard RPT
WBPS
Saxtons River VT
802-869-9107

"Our lives contain a thousand springs
and dies if one be gone
Strange that a harp of a thousand strings
should keep in tune so long."
...........Dr. Watts, "The Continental Harmony,1774
+++++++++++++++++++++


Original Message:
Sent: 06-11-2022 01:16
From: Delwin Fandrich
Subject: What's on your bookshelf?

I would be remis if I didn't suggest "Piano Tone Building."

ddf

------------------------------
[Delwin D] Fandrich] [RPT]
[Piano Design & Manufacturing Consultant]
[Fandrich Piano Co., Inc.]
[Olympia] [WA]
[360-515-0119]


Original Message:
Sent: 06-10-2022 14:49
From: Benjamin Bradley
Subject: What's on your bookshelf?

New Techniques for Superior Aural Tuning by Virgil Smith.

Regrettably this appears to have gone out of print a few years ago,
and as it was ssurely a small print run aimed at the rather small
audience of piano tuners who tend to keep their books, used copies for
sale are very hard to find.

One of the big points he makes is that the beat you hear while tuning
is not necessarily the mathematical difference in pitches of the
fundamentals or harmonics, but often some sort of amalgam of those
beats.

I've read the local chapter's copy of Levitan's book and it's
certainly much larger and more complete (I recall about half the book
is on hammer technique, Smith has only a few paragraphs), but I still
think Smith's book has some good nuggets not found elsewhere.

Sorry to bump this thread. Scott, did you ever publish this collection of recommended books? Did I just miss it?