Hi Ed, I think our profession, on the big scale, is slowly dwindling like the piano industry as a whole. My chapter here in Nebraska, is probably about an average of my age (nearing 50) or better (at least those who come to the meetings), but we have two budding students who are charged up about the future possibilities! We need to recruit more young folks who want to continue in our footsteps. I, for one, am going to teach my 13 year old to rebush keys this summer so he can make some cash., but he hasn't shown interest in doing what I do for a career. I wish I had the time to properly train some new blood as I have 110 pianos to care for, so lots to learn from. The university is always willing to get free "help", at least on the upright practice room pianos. The down side for me is that I have to immediately go and correct all the mistakes :>( as they learn; so the 2 sided coin....heads I win, tails you lose. or the other way around, I should say. We only offer a one semester class on the basics of piano mechanics in which I have an average of 3 or 4 students just looking for a small bit of education to learn of the instruments they play. Most of my students are not even piano majors, but filling up an elective as it's a cool class. They're always very enthusiastic in class, but at the end of the semester, that's all they do. Sadly, and I think it should be manditory, that all piano majors take my class; but, then again, I don't have the time to teach that many students. It may be a problem in the next 10 years, however, the income possibilities may be huge for the new blood entering this field. Just my 2 cents. Paul From: Ed Foote <a440a at aol.com> To: pianotech at ptg.org Date: 07/07/2010 03:31 PM Subject: [pianotech] Are we fading? Greetings, In this months Journal, Clarence Zeches mentions that the average age of "our technicians", (I take that to mean Guild membership), is in the 50's or later. Judging by the gray hair and wrinkles at the conventions, (mine too!) I will not dispute that. This was in response to the question of "Where are the techs going to be coming from in 20 or 30 years"? My personal observation is that the average age of tuners is much lower, but that includes the non-Guild tuners, many of whom have an ETD, hammer, mute and maybe a screwdriver but no more. It is easy money, and many of the bread and butter tunings are being done, (poorly), by part-timers. Is the Guild slowly representing fewer and fewer of the people that are actually doing the tuning out there? Ed Foote RPT http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20100707/9cca9861/attachment.htm>
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