Again this year, SCRC is offering all-day-long classes on Tuesday. These extra cost classes allow for extended learning.
You will have to choose the one most important to you!
Check for updates periodically.
There will be three different classes:
Resurrecting the Older Grand Piano (Periods 1 and 2).
This seminar is a shortened version of Don’s all-day workshop on how to bring a well-worn grand piano into good playing condition in one day. Topics covered will be prioritizing your work, planning to spend time on the areas that will have the most impact on the piano, giving the most “bang for your buck” in action performance and piano tone. Don will provide an overview of how to accomplish this with some demonstrations, covering string seating, hammer shaping, minor action reconditioning points that can be done quickly, regulation, tuning, and voicing, He will also show some useful tips that can help any piano perform and sound better. This class will challenge you to raise the level of service you provide, and provide a lot of useful tips for making heavily used newer pianos perform at their best.
Regulating Upright Damper Spoons: Are there really spoons? (Period 3)
A class on the purpose and benefits of setting the damper lift in upright pianos accurately, a job so often overlooked when servicing upright actions. In this session Don covers the reasons for regulating, and provides a demonstration of how to use purchase and modify the blade type spoon benders, and use a special transparent spacing jig to make the job accurate and fast in almost any piano. At the conclusion there will be time to try it for yourself with a little coaching from Don. A practical, hands-on seminar for every technician.
Action Centers: The Secret of Consistent Touch. (Period 4)
This class is in two parts within the one class session. The first focuses on understanding how action centers function and why they need service, and the second demonstrates an efficient and highly accurate method for recentering using sized broaches. The discussion will include evaluating the amount of friction needed for any given action part, and the effects of pinning on touch and tone.
Description: Rebuilding a piano that may need a new keyboard or action parts? This all day class will demystify action geometry and show how to evaluate and specify a keyboard for evaluation and replacement for the tech rebuilder. We'll demonstrate practical and objective ways to make your action rebuild successful by checking the condition of the keyboard and stack and simple ways to check action geometry.
Recommended students bring a 6" (150 mm) caliper, a metric tape measure such as the Pianotek part SR-1933, and a smart phone or calculator.
An in depth discussion and demonstration on aligning, spacing, traveling, and burning grand and upright hammers and wippens.
You shouldn't have to feel like a pushy sales person to get your clients to choose to invest in their piano. Creating estimates that sell is all about staying true to who you are and utilizing the full power of Gazelle's Estimate feature in your business. Every year millions of dollars worth of estimates are being created in Gazelle and we will be discussing tips, tricks, and things we have learned helping piano technicians around the globe create better estimates in their business.
Grand dampers begin with the pedal and end on top of the strings. This class will cover a step by step approach to regulating grand dampers with a logical and straightforward approach. Take the mystery out of grand dampers and enjoy a ring free piano.
Learn expert techniques for hanging upright hammers both in and out of the piano from the team at Brooks LTD. Discover what parts are available on the market and opportunities you have to improve aesthetics, maintenance and performance during the replacement process. Let the voice of experience help you to avoid common pitfalls, build a better tool bag and increase your skill set – and ultimately, your business.
Come learn about using Gazelle to grow your business. Whether you are just getting started or you have questions that dive deep into how you can best use any of our features to grow. Gazelle's all-in-one business management software for piano technicians is the tool you need and we will be covering how Gazelle has helped piano technicians around the globe (and how it can help you) grow your revenue, save time, and wow your customers.
This class will include hammer shaping, string leveling, ‘rough’ needling, fitting hammers to strings, and voicing. It should be useful to both beginners and anyone who does concert prep.
Making maximum improvements to both vertical & grand pianos with CURRENT resources. Discover how some amazing changes can be made to the sound & touch to many pianos when budgets are somewhat limited.
Struggling with tuning stability related to humidity fluctuations? We have a solution! The Piano Life Saver is a complete climate control system to help minimize tuning stability issues due to changes in humidity. We will provide a broad overview of product function, system selection, basic installation and service. This is a great course to check out whether you are new to the Piano Life Saver system, or just looking to brush up your skills and knowledge.
This class will present a method and procedure I use to voice a piano with moderately worn hammers, starting with the belly. There will be a quick overview of regulation and hammer shaping, alignment and fitting before doing the felt acupuncture. We will then explore various needling methods and tools.
Demystifying the most prevalent vertical piano regulation issues we encounter in the field. This session will focus only on verticals (including spinets) and will allow time for hands-on demonstrations of some of the topics discussed.
It will cover: Effective, proven time management skills for the professional.
CyberTuner’s new AI mode is the star of the show (yes, that stands for Aural Interval)! AI lets CyberTuner custom tailor a tuning note by note like a master aural tuner. Newcomers and seasoned Cyber tuners come to learn how to get the most out of CyberTuner and AI on your best (and worst) pianos.
This class introduces ways to cause stress on your body using our most common tools like impact hammers and rigid levers. We’ll look at lots of exciting ways we lose income by shortening our careers, causing pain, and limiting our finesse every day! Seriously though, using the right tools (including our bodies) the right way is crucial whether you're just starting out or have been tuning for years. We'll cover the basics as well as some advanced tips, then offer hands-on instruction.
What are partials? What are beats? What is inharmonicity? In our business, PARTIAL HEARING is, indeed, your greatest asset. What’s it all about? Come find out.
Do you want to nail F-A at 7 beats per second? I’ll teach you how. The piano can actually dictate that speed and others. Here is a revolutionary strategy for getting the piano to give you those crucial beat speeds in your temperament. It is not black magic. Seriously! Come see how the piano itself can improve your tuning.
With the help of electronic tuning aids, anyone can now take or administer a mock tuning exam. Learn how to set up the piano and the device to give a mock tuning exam to yourself (if you are studying for your RPT exams) or others (if you are helping someone prepare for their RPT exams). Tunelab, Verituner, and Cybertuner will all be covered, though we will focus primarily on Cybertuner, with particular attention to the Aural Tutor function. All three parts of the exam will be discussed, with tips on how to prepare for and succeed on each subsection.
This is a very practical class, filled with how to do things efficiently and effectively, getting the biggest bang for the buck but not cutting corners. Both grand and upright work will be covered.
1st period: Touch is a combination of how the piano action feels to the pianist and how it functions. We’ll look at some of the most effective things we might do during comprehensive service of a piano action, and how they will affect the customer’s experience of the piano. We will cover how regulation affects the actual touch weight the pianist feels, and look at how to optimize the keys for feel and function. We’ll focus on procedures that will make a big improvement, and how to explain to the customer the difference they can expect from our work.
2nd period: Tone: What is the pianist after? I believe that for virtually any pianist, the most basic answer is a focused tone that features a wide range of tone color. Achieving this begins with preparing the action so that the mechanism throws the hammer precisely to the string, and is followed by a consistent deep-needling procedure to open up the shoulders of the hammer. We’ll go through all the steps in detail.
Jim Watson will be teaching a class on acoustic theory of pianos and the process of replacing a sound board. For starters we will discuss the reasons to replace the sound board in a piano. The bulk of this class will cover, in depth, the process of replacing a sound board in a piano. Acoustic theory will be mingled in with sound board replacement and cover how many factors can affect dynamic potential, projection, sustain, and power of a piano.
Helpful steps and hints on grand piano rebuilding, including measuring preparation for complete disassembly, removing plate, strings and pins, measuring and sorting screws and hardware, and removing dampers.
Helpful steps and hints on grand piano rebuilding, including case and plate refinish plans, replace strings and tuning pins, action rebuild choices, regulation, reassembly, tuning and voicing.