Music theory for piano technicians is a little different than music theory for musicians.
The biggest difference is while musicians need to know how notes and intervals relate to each other in different keys, piano technicians just need the theory to tell us two things:
1. What Note Do I Tune?
2. What Note Do I Tune Next?
Read this article for an explanation of how piano technicians use some but not all of classical music theory to talk about tuning.
The article above talks about the difference reasons why musicians and piano technicians need to name notes and intervals and that the piano technician has a much more practice reason for doing so.
To that end, the article describes a tool for seeing notes and intervals. You can make your own tool by designing it as the article describes, or you can download the following PDF and print your own.
If you’re interested, you can buy a more professional Interval Slide Rule that not only shows notes and intervals, but also coincident partials and check notes. This video explains how it works and you can purchase using the button below the video.
Interval Slide Rule from Mark Cerisano on Vimeo.
When you’re ready and think you know your intervals well, take these tests and see how you do.