Instructors
The SCRC team has rounded up some of the best instructors you'll find. Click the links on the left to see bios, which are below.
Tim Barnes, RPT - Charlotte, NC
Timothy Barnes, RPT has spent the last 20 years building a successful piano service business that employs multiple technicians and office staff. His background is in music with a BSBA in Economics. Over the years he has developed a passion for helping piano technicians achieve their dreams, work less and earn more. He is the co-founder of the Gazelle Network and is helping piano technicians around the world build stronger businesses so they can focus on the things they love.
Wim Blees, RPT - St. Augustine, FL
Wim has given lectures at over 55 PTG seminars and conventions on a wide variety of subjects including tuning, repairing, rebuilding and business. He has also taught the at the Europiano Conference in Warsaw, Poland, at the APPTA conventions in Adelaide and Brisbane, and at Malaysian PTG seminars. Wim has served on the PTG Board of Directors as the Central West Vice President and was a CTE for many years. He was the president of the Central Florida Chapter, and the chairman of the 2024 PTG Southeast Regional Seminar. At the PTG Convention in Orlando Florida in 2021, Wim was awarded the Member of Note.
In addition to writing numerous articles for the Piano Technicians Journal, he is the author. The Business Of Piano Tuning: a guide to marketing, managing, promoting, buying and selling a piano service business.
Christian Bolduc, St. Joseph, Quebec, Canada
Christian Bolduc is a technician/bellyman specializing in soundboards and pin blocks. Following his studies at Ecole du Meuble de Victoriaville to become a fine cabinet and furniture maker, he spent a full year at the Schimmel factory in Braunschweig, Germany studying piano structure and design. His combined understanding of wood and design has made him an expert in his niche. He is a constant searcher for new ideas and methods to make your rebuilding projects easier. Christian is also the factory manager at Pianos Bolduc.
Melanie Brooks , Uncasville, CT
Melanie Brooks is the owner of Brooks LTD Piano Products, a family-owned business. Melanie took on the role of General Manager in 2002, and in 2009 purchased Brooks LTD. She was raised in a rebuilding shop and is a third generation PTG member, actively participating since 1996. She continues to teach courses on wood, wood products and grand action replacements throughout North America. Committed to collaborating with technicians and rebuilders to create, service, and restore instruments with innovative and specialized products.
Gary Bruce, RPT - Edmond, OK
Gary's first piano work experience was in high school when he helped a local piano tuner move a piano in his hometown of Bad Axe, Michigan. He began working on pianos in college and started Bruce Piano Service in 1979. Gary joined the Central Oklahoma Chapter in 1980 and became an RPT in 1987. He attended the Yamaha Little Red Schoolhouse in 1985 and the WNG class in 2012. He has been constantly involved with the Central Oklahoma chapter, currently serving as Treasurer. He served as Seminar Director for the 1992 and 2007 SCRC (TSA) conventions held in Oklahoma City. He served as SCRC Treasurer in 2015-16 and is currently serving SCRC as Treasurer. Gary has taught locally and regionally on a variety of topics. He completed a personal property training course in 2019, receiving the designation CAGA from the Certified Appraisers Guild of America. Gary works full-time as a piano technician from his home in Edmond, Oklahoma. His oldest son Jordan is also a piano technician and retail store owner and a Member of the Central Oklahoma Chapter. Gary and his wife Jan have degrees in music - his is in percussion performance and hers in piano performance. Their three younger children all have master's degrees in music and are professional musicians and teachers.
Norman Cantrell, RPT - Oklahoma City, OK
Norman Cantrell began his career in musical instrument repair by working as an apprentice for B. L. McCrary Pipe Organ Service in Oklahoma City in the fall of 1978. After two and a half years with Mr. McCrary he left OKC and enrolled in Grayson County College in Dennison, TX to study piano tuning and repair. Upon completion of his studies at Grayson he returned to Oklahoma City and opened his own piano service business. Over the years he has specialized in the restoration of player pianos. He has been a member of the Piano Technicians Guild for several years and is currently a Registered Piano Technician and a Certified Tuning Examiner. He has been an instructor at regional and national PTG seminars. Norman is a past National PTG President.
Josi Davis - Brooks LTD, Uncasville, CT
Josi is a second generation piano technician specializing in upright hammers and action parts as part of the Brooks LTD team, where she has developed a method for full upright hammer and butt prehanging. As a performer and songwriter, the piano remains her primary writing instrument and her favorite curiosity. Josi represents the Brooks LTD team as an expert instructor in grand and upright hammer hanging methods and other skills at the PTG Annual Convention and for Regional Conferences and Chapter Technicals throughout the year. Check out Brooks LTD at www.brooksltdonline.com. Check her music out at www.josidavis.com/music.
Mike Ello, RPT - Houston, TX
Mike Ello, RPT, author of "Master Guide to Piano Finish Touch Up", has been working on pianos since 1983. His family owned business is based in Richmond, TX, servicing the greater Houston area with tuning, regulating, voicing, appraisals, and finish repair. You can visit Mike′s website at http://www.ellopianoservice.com.
Kevin Fortenberry, RPT - Longview, TX
Kevin is a graduate of the 1992 Class of Piano Technology at Houston Community College, where Jim Geiger, RPT was his instructor and has been an ongoing mentor. He has been been working on pianos for over 30 years. Kevin currently serves at Chapter President of the East Texas Chapter of PTG. He was the Staff Piano Technician at the Texas Tech School of music for 11 years, and takes care of many Churches, Schools, Piano Teachers and a long list of private clients as well.
Jim Geiger, RPT - Waco, TX
Jim has been a full-time piano technician for over 69 years, and an RPT for 54 years. He is a Graduate of the Piano Technology Program of the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. He has attended over 50 PTG Conventions, and has taught classes at MANY conventions both the Annuals and Regionals. He has served as RVP of PTG, and as Vice President and President of numerous Chapters including Houston, Dayton, Kentucky and the Heart of Texas, where is continues to serve currently. He was the Lead Instructor at the Houston Community College Piano Technology Program for 10 years, graduated Yamaha's Little Red Schoolhouse, Kimball's School of Piano Technology, and Steinway's School. He was the Staff Piano Tech at Morehead State University for several years. And relevant to this class, Jim has also been a professional Piano Mover for most of his career, and has taken care of the piano moving needs at 19 PTG Conventions! Everywhere Jim goes he always finds people who want to learn about this business and he's ALWAYS willing to teach, help, and mentor any way he can. Jim has taught so MANY people how to tune pianos and to serve as Piano Technicians over the years that it is difficult to even count.
Nick Litterski, RPT - Austin, TX
Nick Litterski has had a lifelong love of the piano, and has been working as a professional pianist for 30 years. After pursuing a BA in Music and MM in Piano Pedagogy at UT Austin's Butler School, the gift of an old upright piano kindled Nick's interest in piano technology. After imbibing the Randy Potter school and training as an aural tuner, Litterski joined the PTG in 2010, just in time for the incredible Canyon of the Eagles SCRC in Burnet, TX. He hasn't missed an SCRC since (except for the cancelled 2022 convention in San Antonio).
He proudly serves as Vice-President for his local PTG chapter Austin 757, and has taught classes on ergonomics in piano tuning. A longtime practitioner of yoga, Litterski is interested in helping others find longevity in this profession by sharing physical approaches cultivated over years of practice.
Dean Reyburn, RPT - Kent City, MI
Dean Reyburn passed his RPT exams in 1978 and has 35+ years tuning experience. He has served on the PTG Examinations and Test Standards Committee since 1996 and acts as Advisor and CTE skill reviewer. Dean has 12 years experience as concert tuner for the Grand Rapids Symphony and DeVos Hall in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He was the technician for the local Steinway and Yamaha dealers for many years and tuned for numerous concert and popular music artists. Dean attended Moody Bible Institute in Chicago from 1976 to 1978 where he majored in electronics and learned piano technology from Virgil Smith, RPT and Robert Carbaugh (and met his wife Marty). Dean is a self-taught Software Engineer with 30 years experience programming in more languages and computer platforms than he'll admit. He enjoys rollerblading, tennis and biking in his spare time.
Nate Reyburn, RPT - Kent City, MI
Nate has been having fun with pianos and obsessing over tuning tools for his entire career. He works with with Reyburn CyberTuner and piano tuners across the country, tunes pianos in the “real world”, and makes the Golden Hammer Award. His pet peeves are people who don’t use turn signals, delayed pop-up ads, bad kerning, and the 3/8-30 TPI thread. He loves spending time with his wife and three girls (10 and under) and fixing things that absolutely aren’t broken.
Jack Stebbins, RPT - Pleasant Hill, TN
Jack Stebbins has been committed to piano service for over forty years. In the fall of 1981, in his early 40s, he entered North Bennet Street School to pursue training in Piano Technology under the leadership of Bill Garlick and David Betts. With this new vocation well in hand, he set up a piano service business out of his home in western Massachusetts. The business was growing well, when Jack received a call from the school. One of the staff was going to be out on maternity leave. Could Jack fill in during her absence? He could. And, in the fall of 1986, he did. In 2015 Jack retired from North Bennet after nearly thirty years. Two years later he sold his business and retired to eastern Tennessee.
Corbin Sturch, RPT - Houston, TX
Corbin Sturch is a Concert Piano Technician who currently works with the University of Houston as a Piano Technician and Technical Instructor and the Interlochen Center for the Arts as the Arts Festival Piano Technician. Corbin specializes in the Steinway & Sons methodology for the care and upkeep of concert grand pianos and performance instruments, and in the training of Apprentice Piano Technicians and semi-professional Piano Technicians who seek to expand their skill set. Corbin believes that it is the sole duty of the Piano Technician to make the instrument the best it can possibly be for a performer, and that the collaboration between the artist and technician allows for the perfect marriage of the performance capabilities and artistry of the piano in performance. Corbin has worked with several notable artists and groups as a technician including such pianists as Barry Snyder, Roman Rabinovich, Joseph Moog, Michael Coonrod, TJ Lymenstull, Jerome Lowenthal, Julie Cheek, Sarah Cahill and many others; the performers Steve Martin and Martin Short, Paula Robison, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, The Capitol Steps, Dorrance Dance, and Daniel Martin Moore; the World Youth Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Houston Symphony Orchestra, Ars Lyrica Houston, Amarillo Symphony, and Oberlin Baroque Orchestra; and such festivals and series as the Interlochen Arts Festival, IPR's "In Studio A with," and "Live From IPR's Studio A." Corbin is a factory trained piano technician with training from Steinway & Sons New York, and with additional training concerning manufacturing practices on instruments from Steinway & Sons Hamburg, Shigeru Kawai, Kawai, Baldwin and Yamaha. Corbin has spent hundreds of hours studying professional tuning, regulation and voicing with such master technicians as John Cavanaugh, Robert Murphy, Jessica Masse, Kent Webb, Eric Schandall, Dan Harteau, Thomas Malone, Justin Holcombe and Ken Sloane; and additional training in historic instrument manufacture and tuning methods from Robert Murphy and Kathie Stewart.
Fred Sturm, RPT - University of New Mexico
Fred Sturm, RPT since 1981, has worked for thirty years at the University of New Mexico, serving private and concert clientele as well. He has been active on the College and University Technicians committee, including trying to refine techniques for maintenance of heavy use instruments, to achieve long-lasting high level results. He has published many articles in the PTG Journal, and has taught regularly at annual conventions and elsewhere. His translation of Claude Montal's The Art of Tuning (1836 and 1865) was published recently by the Piano Technicians Guild Foundation.
Jim Watson - San Marcos, TX
Jim Watson is the owner and lead restorer at Watson Piano Works in San Marcos, Texas, where together with his business partner, he also helped to develop the Key Measuring Device, a revolutionary new technology for piano technicians. With an educational background in both music and industrial technology, Watson has been restoring pianos for close to two decades for clients in Central Texas as well as across the country.