Many of us find the situation of being piano technicians a career in which we can be exceptionally happy.
I wish and pray that all people may find their best situations.
I serve my customers joyfully, with deep gratitude. Perhaps that is why they smile when they see me, and call me back.
I have an associate, now an RPT, who is similarly happy, and his business is growing. His skills are outstanding, and growing continuously. In my area, spanning North and South Carolina, it is widely accepted that RPTs deliver superior work.
I did not have a go cart when I was a child. My father, who was barely literate, took me to get a library card when I was five years old. Fifty-five years later his gift still nurtures me.
Ed Sutton
----- Original Message -----
From: tannertuner
To: caut at ptg.org
Sent: Sunday, July 11, 2010 3:54 PM
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Are we fading?
For some reason, I didn't get the original, even in my spam box, but I'd like to respond.
To Ed, yes, the bread and butter tunings are being done by "whoever". We even have RPTs who know the reality that 99.9% of the customers can't tell the difference between a decent tuning and an excellent one. I don't think this is new. I'm having a very difficult time getting more than about 10 appointments a week, despite being a bit below average cost and owning a reputation of extremely solid tunings, so I don't think new blood is a problem right now. Not in our area, anyway. We're getting very few new customers, even though I've supposedly bought another tech's $85K/year business.
There is new blood in the wings, but this is a really tough time for them to break in to the business unless they're tuning for like, half price or less, so we have to keep that in mind. I gave up on the business in the past when times were too tough, and there's no reason this next generation who are children of easy living 6 figure income pharmaceutical reps and IT professionals wouldn't give up too. This is hard work, and much more taxing on the body than the video games they've basically watched their parents build fortunes on.
My own kids are not interested at all because they see other people making so much more money with so much less effort than they've watched their dad deal with. My 10 year old constantly asks why we're in the piano business, while my kids watch their uncle sell cars providing their cousins with go-carts, vacation lake houses, boats, jet skis, and 1000s of acres of land to play on. And we're doing a heck of a lot better than when I was a CAUT.
Our vacations are $100 camping trips (in a $150 tent - not an RV) every 3 or 4 years while their friends do Disney World. And we can only do that because our 4 piano sales this year have come in the last 2 months. Service is crap right now.
I'm not being pessimistic - just real. It's a tough sell in an extremely tough market.
And the real reality is, to get to the meat of your question, Ed, unfortunately, the secret is kind of getting out that the RPT doesn't mean a whole lot. It's basic skills, but even the RPTs aren't providing a much higher level of service than the non-members they're competing against, because they know that the customer who can tell the difference is so rare that they don't matter to the bottom line. And, quite frankly, there are a lot of techs out there who aren't members who do high level work. So, the RPT is a tough sell, when you've got good techs out there bursting our bubble. Customers look at you like you're loopy when you try to sell them on the idea of a higher level of service somebody else has led them to believe they don't need. All kinds of things in there, I know, but that's what I run into. Then there are the colleges that think we're supposed to be homeless and single volunteers. Costs a lot of money to live and this is a tough way to make it. It's a tough sell to young blood. Then, add the incredible expense of health care for the self-employed - that's a whole 2nd income.
Heck, I wouldn't do it again if it were me.
Jeff Tanner
--- On Thu, 7/8/10, Israel Stein <custos3 at comcast.net> wrote:
From: Israel Stein <custos3 at comcast.net>
Subject: [CAUT] Are we fading?
To: caut at ptg.org
Date: Thursday, July 8, 2010, 9:36 PM
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
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