Well, I suppose since this message got cross-posted to this list, I suppose I should repost my reply here also... On Jul 07/07/10 2:00 PM Paul T. Williams wrote: 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! Paul, I really don't see things as pessimistically as you do. It may be true that because our profession consists to a large part of "retreads" - it's typically a second or third career choice - the average age will be a bit higher than typical in other professions. But, a PTG convention - especially in a difficult economy - is not the best sample of age distribution, as we of the gray hair, spreading midriff and suspenders crowd (thanks Joe) are more likely to have the cash and the leisure to go. You know, kids out of the house, mortgage almost paid, business well established... I come across plenty young people in our ranks - in their twenties and thirties. At our San Francisco Chapter meetings you will typically find a pretty wide age distribution. The trick is to develop interesting and varied programming with appeal to all levels of competence and not to allow a chapter to become a narrow homogenous "clique" that ages together over the years - which then becomes not particularly attractive to younger people to spend time with a bunch of geezers... It's sort of a chicken and egg thing, I suppose... Then again, a large proportion of the RPT candidates I have tested over the years tend to be in their 30's and even 20's. The same goes for the students from North Bennet Street School and Western Ontario I meet - and I would bet that Paul Revenko Jones could probably say the same about his students in Chicago (though I can't vouch for that personally). >We need to recruit more young folks who want to continue in our footsteps. Can't argue with this. But then there are people who are doing just that - and have been doing it all along. Joe Garret in Oregon has trained some crackerjack young technicians over the years, and Lance LaFargue in New Orleans keeps cranking out these fuzzy-cheeked youths who can run circles with their technical skills around many of us graybeards. John Callahan here in the SF Bay area has launched many youths' careers in his rebuilding shop and so has Margie Williams while her shop was active - one of them is now chief technician at the University of Denver. I am sure there are more such everywhere... >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. I don't know how feasible it is to do much training in an institutional setting (though I have some ideas that I might pitch to the appropriate people given the opportunity) but those of us with their own private shops are in a much better position to do this. So we should make the effort... >It may be a problem in the next 10 years, however, the income possibilities may be huge for the new blood entering this field. At least here in Northern California there are plenty younger folk of both genders who are well positioned to take advantage - and more show up from time to time... And - by the way - the fly-by-nights of all ages have always been with us, and will continue to be with us - as long as the ignorance about pianos among those who make a living playing them continues to be as widespread as it has always been. And the good thing about recessions is that they knock out a fair number of them out of business - because they don't have the skill set or the equipment to survive in difficult times and expand into a greater variety of work when the tunings dry up. But then again, I have seen enough of those "quick buck" types actually develop an interest in the profession after a year or two and eventually become fine technicians. So let's not get all gloom-and-doomy about a preponderance of gray hair and spreading midriffs at Las Vegas - it means little, as far as I am concerned... Israel Stein, RPT > > 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/20100708/4c18fec7/attachment-0001.htm>
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