How many piano tuners are there in Chicago?

[Billbrpt@AOL.COM]

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In a message dated 1/10/02 8:48:30 AM Central Standard Time, 
jgunderson@monmouth.com (John Gunderson) writes:


> Just in case you were wondering.
> 
> 

Here is what I read on this website:

<<As a lecturer, Enrico Fermi used to challenge his classes with problems 
that, at first glance, seemed impossible. One such problem was that of 
estimating the number of piano tuners in Chicago given only the population of 
the city. When the class returned a blank stare at their esteemed professor, 
he would proceed along these lines:

>From the almanac, we know that Chicago has a population of about 3 million 
people. 
Now, assume that an average family contains four members so that the number 
of families in Chicago must be about 750,000. 
If one in five families owns a piano, there will be 150,000 pianos in Chicago.
 
If the average piano tuner 
serviced four pianos every day of the week for five days 
rested on weekends, and 
had a two week vacation during the summer, 

then in one year (52 weeks) he would service 1,500 pianos. 150,000/(4 x 5 x 
50) = 150, so that there must be about 150 piano tuners in Chicago.
This method does not guarantee correct results; but it does establish a first 
estimate which might be off by no more than a factor of 2 or 3--certainly 
well within a factor of, say, 10. >>
    
There seems to be a little problem with the math, here (duh).  4 x 5 x 50 = 
1000, not 150, for starters.  Next, this idea that a piano "tuner" would 
"tune" 4 pianos a day, 5 days a week would also amount to 1,000 pianos, not 
1,500.  But this supposition would amount to a rarity, not what an *average* 
piano technician would do.

First of all, pianos need more than *just tuning*, as I'm sure we can all 
confirm.  I'd really question such a claim, that *anyone* really, only tuned 
1,000 pianos every year, year after year.  That would inevitably amount to a 
*dis* service, not a good and honest way to make a living.  Please don't ask 
me to believe that there 150 of these guys running that kind of racket in 
Chicago!

My off the cuff guess is there would be about 50 piano technicians in 
Chicago.  I'm not sure in this exercise if the 3 million figure is just 
Chicago or the whole metro area that includes all the suburbs or not.  The 
PTG directory lists a total of 110 for both the Chicago and Waukegan (a north 
suburb of Chicago) Chapters.  Of course there may be many people who are not 
PTG members.

But still, that list includes people like Jack Greenfield and Virgil Smith 
whom I'm quite certain don't tune 20 pianos a week, 1,000 a year.  Then, 
there are people like Alan Vincent who run a company and do belly work and 
hardly ever tune and people like Kurt Saphir who probably *sells* 1,000 
pianos a year and also rarely do any tuning.

Wouldn't an easier and more accurate way of determining this number be to 
look in the phone book and count the names, then add maybe 10% for those who 
don't list themselves?

Bill Bremmer RPT
Madison, Wisconsin
 <A HREF="http://www.billbremmer.com/">Click here: -=w w w . b i l l b r e m m e r . c o m =-</A> 

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