[CAUT] CAUT pay, was Job Opening...

[Jeff Tanner]

On Oct 16, 2007, at 7:59 AM, Scott E. Thile wrote:

> Jeff, I still question the notion you have that private sector work  
> is some
> how less necessary. What about piano teachers and their more serious
> students, concert venues, concert artists, accompanists, and in my  
> case,
> churches where I tuned several times a year to coincide with major  
> services,
> etc.. Lots of high level, very critical work is needed and done in the
> private sector.

If you read the whole post, you would have seen that I defined what I  
meant by "as necessary" as "the average volume of work required in  
the institution is higher per instrument than in the private  
sector."  And that's being conservative.  I could easily have said  
"exponentially higher".

My piano teachers and serious students pianos don't require as much  
attention by far.  I have one high level teacher who insists that her  
students all have their pianos tuned at least twice a year (which  
they don't), but if we can get to hers every 12 to 18 months that's  
actually pretty par for the course, and I always tend to find her  
piano in better condition than I can keep these at the university  
that I tend to once a month!  Sure it needs a rebuild but that will  
wait until she gets both daughters through their music degrees  
(there's that priorities thing again).  One of her more serious  
students spends more money with me than most of my other clients.  He  
has a very nice newer Knabe grand that we tune every 6 months.   
According to him (and backed up by his wife), he practices 3 hours a  
day.  That's high use for any home piano.  When I come around, the  
touch ups that are required are so minimal that I feel guilty about  
taking his money.  Another of our highest regarded teachers has a  
very nice Steinway I've tuned once in 5 years.  It just doesn't  
require much.  At first I thought he just had a high tolerance for a  
detuned piano.  No.  It stays very well in tune and in good voice.   
And these are just examples of what is common among my private sector  
clientele.  I can keep private sector pianos in far superior  
condition to my university inventory with a fraction of the amount of  
work.

Same for churches.  Yes, most churches could use more frequent work,  
but they just can't justify the expense of monthly tunings.  And  
besides, the music you hear in lots of churches actually sounds  
better on untuned pianos.  A whole style of music has evolved that  
sounds better when the piano isn't quite in tune.  It just isn't  
necessary to do as much work there.  But even in the churches which  
do place a higher priority on their instruments, they don't ask me to  
tune just before the performance and stay in case there is a  
problem.  It just isn't necessary.  We tune and service regularly and  
the work lasts quite a long time.  Another church I tune for has a 10  
year old Steinway B.  It's going on 2 years since it was last tuned  
and the last time I was there for a service it sounded just fine for  
what they use it for.

And not all of us tune for concert venues and concert artists.  I  
fill in for one of the local guys on occasion, but if a piano  
technician tried to survive on just tuning for the professional  
performances in most markets he'd starve.  There is some of that  
work, but the amount of work needed to keep up the concert grand for  
the fine arts venue next door is a very small fraction of what it  
takes for our concert grands in the music school.  It isn't being  
used for 3 recitals a day and rehearsals.   A couple performances a  
month is about it.  The tech tuned it for a performance this past  
Saturday and it seems to me he said it had been about 6 weeks since  
he'd been there.

It is not that private sector work is not necessary, and I clarified  
that.  But it will take you at least 1500 private sector customers to  
generate the same amount of work that 40 pianos in an institution  
need.  There isn't the same level of usage and there aren't the same  
problems with climate control.  In the institution, we're supposed to  
be taking students of music to the next level, and it should be our  
obligation to provide instruments (tools) in such condition as to  
enable that.  We are in the business of using pianos up to 16 hours a  
day here in almost every room in the building.  It is a much more  
intensive usage environment.  It is necessary that more work is  
required to maintain them.

We try to sell that pianos in the private sector require a minimum of  
two tunings per year.  And a portion of them do.  But a lot of that  
is us selling our business to keep a steady income.  Lots of that  
work just isn't as necessary as we think it should be.  Or it hasn't  
been in my experience.

And I should also clarify one other thing that might have some of you  
upset by what I wrote.  This might be where Mike misunderstood me so  
much.  I was talking about the tooners out there who just aren't  
capable of high level work.  I wasn't talking about RPT level and  
above technicians who are doing good work.  I was talking about the  
guys who's skill level limits them to tuning grandma's uprights and  
old spinets.  The lower skilled people out there can still make a  
better living than what these CAUT salaries are currently paying.

> For private sector work I think it just depends on how you  
> structure your
> clientele. I'd hate to be depending on the low end these days. The  
> guys I
> know that do are starting to see a huge drop off.

You can't live just on high end work in our area.  There isn't enough  
of it to go around.  We have to be chameleons.  I price my private  
sector work towards the higher end clientele, but you still have to  
take low end work if you're going to do this full time.




Jeff Tanner, RPT
University of South Carolina



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