Brett Goetz, RPT

The short version

I hold a Master of Music in Piano Performance and I am a Registered Piano Technician with the Piano Technicians Guild. I spent years in Fargo, North Dakota tuning for North Dakota State University, Minnesota State University Moorhead, and Concordia College, alongside the local school system and a long list of private clients. I’m now based in La Vista and serving the Omaha metro.

Why the performance degree matters

Plenty of good technicians never play seriously, and plenty of good pianists have no idea what’s inside the case. Doing both changes the work. I know what a repetition should feel like at speed because I’ve needed it at speed. I know when a piano is fighting the player rather than the other way round. And when I finish a tuning, I sit down and play the instrument properly before I call it done. Scales and unisons tell you one thing, real music tells you another.

Why the RPT matters

Piano tuning is an unregulated trade. Anyone may advertise the service tomorrow. The Registered Piano Technician credential is the profession’s own answer to that: written, tuning, and technical examinations administered by the Piano Technicians Guild and judged by working technicians. It doesn’t make anyone infallible, but it does mean the claim has been tested by people who would know.

University work

Institutional tuning is a different discipline from house calls. Practice-room pianos take punishment that home instruments never see. Recital instruments have to be right at a specific hour, and there is no second attempt. Working across three colleges and a school district taught me to be fast without being careless, and to be honest early about what an instrument can and can’t be made to do before a concert.

The other job

I also work as a Learning and Development leader. It has nothing to do with pianos and everything to do with how I run this: appointments start when I say they will, you get a plain explanation rather than jargon, and you know what something costs before it happens.

Starting out in Omaha

I’m building this practice from La Vista, which means Sarpy County clients get the easiest scheduling and I’m genuinely glad of the work. It also means I don’t yet have a full shop, so bench-level rebuilding waits. The services page says exactly where that line falls. Everything a piano in regular home use needs, I can do now.