Piano Technicians Guild Foundation

Supporting PTG

Archives

PTG History

1958 PTG Convention Program
The first annual convention of the newly formed Piano Technicians Guild was held in Washington D.C., July 7-10, 1958. The official program contains 104 pages of articles and photos with details of our founding members, the merging of two organizations, industry ads, and a directory of the membership.
1982 PTG 25th Anniversary Convention Program

Conservation

Proposed Guidelines for Piano Conservation by John R. Watson
Addition, Subtraction, Deception and History – The Restorative Conservation of Historic Pianos by John Watson and Ken Eschete

Memoirs

​​The Memoirs of Edith Mary DeForest (1915-2010) – 45 Years of Service to Pratt, Read & Company, Inc. 
​​Country Piano Tuner: His Stupid Song by Howard N. Chase, 1971

Interviews

Susan Graham

Uploads from PTG HomeOffice
These four videos supplement the Susan Graham issue of the Piano Technicians Journal

Ben McKlveen 

Uploads from PTG HomeOffice
This is a five-minute excerpt from an interview John Parham did with Ben McKlveen at the PTG annual convention in Chicago on July 12, 2011. Ben died January 17, 2014. He was a World War II veteran and a charter member of PTG.

Norm Neblett

Interview of Norman Neblett conducted on April 22, 2011 by Rick Baldassin and Richard Davenport.

Norman Neblett Interview Part 1
Norman Neblett interview Part I
Norman Neblett Interview Part 2
Norman Neblett interview Part II

Ted Sambell

In July 2012, Ted Sambell, RPT, received the highest recognition awarded by PTG: the Golden Hammer Award. This interview (recorded by John Parham, RPT, a year earlier) recounts his journey into the piano tuning industry and how he entered into an association with the world-famous Canadian pianist Glenn Gould.

Ted Sambell Part 1, Piano Technicians Journal, Oct 2012
Ted Sambell interview Part I
Ted Sambell Part 2, Piano Technicians Journal Oct 2012
Ted Sambell interview Part II

NAMM Oral History Project Interviews

Galleries

NAMM Exhibit 1

NAMM Exhibit (2018)

In 2017, the Foundation and the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) co-produced an exhibit containing artifacts from the museum. “Unseen Artists: Sights and Images from the Piano Technicians Guild,” appeared at the 2018 Winter NAMM show in Anaheim, California.

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Sheldon Smith Plate Casting

Plate Casting – Sheldon Smith (1981)

These slides are an amazingly detailed visual account of Sheldon’s bold effort to cast a plate so he could build a piano himself “from scratch,” at a time when there were hardly any piano technicians even attempting to replace soundboards or pinblocks.

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