low quality, and high quality

[Ron Nossaman]

>Hi Ron,
>Like all of you, I also prefer to work on good pianos.
==================
>There are other people in the world that do not make the big wages,and they
>deserve music too.
>All of us, don't have the luxury of a large population base, of high income
>earners.
>Regards,
>John M. Ross
>Windsor, Nova Scotia, Canada.
>


Hi John,
I understand, believe me. I do much more "mercy" work than I probably should
already. In years past, I did a whole lot of this kind of work, mostly
because I hadn't developed a higher level of business yet. I saw enough of
the benefit of the exposure of the children to the chance at music lessons
to realize that the magic is in the kid, not the piano. For every patch job
I did on old uprights that actually seemed to help someone, there seemed to
be five that just lead the owner to think they could get another level of
incremental improvement with the application of another couple of bucks
until they had a "rebuilt" piano. Also, these kind of jobs always brought
dozens of referrals. People would call wanting the miracle they thought
their friend got, even though I felt their friend would have been better
served by using the piano for garden statuary, and told them so before I did
the work they insisted they wanted done. Then the person for whom I had done
the "service" in the first place calls complaining that a string broke in
the piano that I had fixed for them, and if I had done a good job, that
surely wouldn't have happened, even though I had done nothing with the
strings. I prefer to work on something I have some semblance of control
over, or at least the illusion of control. I find it comforting. Referrals
from people with decent instruments are more often than not, other people
with decent instruments. If I can put myself in a position where I don't
have to do last rites repairs on long dead instruments to feed my family,
why would I want the aggravation? There are plenty of things I do without
for lack of available cash, in spite of the suppliers' insistence that it's
a tragic waste for me to have to live  without their products. It's just a
matter of perspective. Poor folks have had the chance at all the benefits of
music since time began, whether they had access to a piano or not. It's just
that it's the piano that supports us, so who's best interests are we looking
after here? 

Just trying to be objective here.
 Ron