Kent, This sounds like a perfect opportunity to take off your technician hat and do some consulting work. Offer to visit the school and do a comprehensive inventory analysis using the Guidelines for Effective Institutional Piano Maintenance document and other supplementary material as the basis for your work. Meet with the department head, chair of the keyboard department (if there is one) and every full-time and adjunct faculty member you can. Have the college make an announcement of your arrival -- time, date and purpose of visit. The meetings with faculty/staff and students can be informal -- in hallways and lounges -- as the information gathered in this way will complement that which you obtain by more formal means. Ask general questions, and listen carefully to what people are saying and how they respond. Take copious notes. Assure everyone their comments and suggestions will remain confidential (i.e. not associated with their name) but will be used to form a set of recommendations for the proper service, care and maintenance of their piano inventory. Most institutions have money set aside for consulting services. Suggest that the college allocate monies from this account rather than the piano maintenance budget. Stress that doing a comprehensive long-range plan will save money, protect their investment and serve the various constituent groups better in the long run. Charge what other consultants change for time and expenses. The on-site visit will take a day, and the report will take another day to complete, copy and mail. Then there's the follow-up calls/emails and possible negotiation of a contract. But your goal is first to provide the analysis, then to help direct the college to the best available service person to do the work (in this case it sounds like that may be you, but you won't put that idea out there until you've done the research, completed the project and garnered the trust of the administration; by that time it will be they who ask for your services:). As an aside...a smaller, out-of-state college I worked for a few years ago had for the last 30 years been using the same "local tuner" and was still budgeting $6K/yr. for tuning/repair services for 50+ pianos; the gentleman had done an admirable job under the circumstances, but was retiring. Today, as a result of doing a comprehensive inventory analysis and the faculty pushing that the recommendations in the report be implemented, this college retains a full half-time technician, 20 hrs. a week @ $18K/yr. with full benefits plus shop space, repair budget and on-going rebuilding program. With 32 pianos, you might not want to suggest to this college the creation of a staff position, but perhaps a regular contract 3-4 days a month @ YOUR market rate would be a place to start.... As you said, technicians from elsewhere -- preferably from far away but the next town will do -- always know more. You're in the driver's seat here, so with a little luck everyone can come out a winner. Good luck, Rolf Kent Swafford wrote: > I have fallen into the habit of spending two days a year at a small college > that is well outside my regular service area. > > The college has a local tech that does regular tunings. The college likes > the idea of having an "outside expert" come in regularly, and turned to me > after they found out how much it would cost to have a real Steinway tech > come from New York. :) > > I don't give any sort of discount for my services at this college which > presents a real problem for the local tech, since he _does_ substantially > discount his services. Therefore, I come in and in just two days use up a > rather substantial portion of the annual piano service budget. > > I have been approached by a second college to begin providing a similar > service for them. It has been well known for some time that this 2nd college > has had severe difficulties getting its piano satisfactorily taken care of. > While I am sympathetic, there is only so much I can do. Part of the problem > for this college has been that they have not had their pianos tuned often > enough _and_ they have arranged for only tunings of a number of new pianos > that had the normal technical bugs that needed to be worked out. > > I will suggest to this 2nd college that any less than 2 tunings per piano > per term is asking for disappointment; I seriously doubt that they would > want to pay my prices for that many tunings. I will probably offer to come > up for 2-3 days to tear into the tech problems and tune 4-6 of their faculty > studio pianos. > > For some reason I am having trouble seeing this as anything other than an > unsolvable problem. I was wondering if anyone here had some perspective to > offer from their own similar arrangements. > > The most recent message from the 2nd college follows. > > Kent Swafford > > > Our chair ... here wanted me to get a longer term "game-plan" and have a bid > > before having a person come ... from KS city to do our pianos... According > > to my count this is the number of pianos we have that need to be serviced... > > > > Uprights - 21 > > Grands - 11 (including one in the recital hall) > > > > Let me know what your recommendations would be over the long term. Possibly > > something in conjunction with our local tuner covering part of the time... > > > > Thanks,
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