My thanks to Steve for an exciting new perspective for the journal. Keep the good work coming! Thanks also to all your "helpers " in the discussion .. David Porritt writes on Feb 17 about Jack Wyatt's article in the Journal... Jack: " One point we stressed was that people have a right to buy any quality piano they choose, and other people have a right to build any quality they choose. It's not my, your or anybody else's business.." David: "Does that bother anybody else? I'm politically conservative enough that I believe it at the theortical level, but somehow it rankles me where the shoe leather meets the pavement. Jack has expressed the idea in PTG meetings and I know he believes it firmly." In about 20 years of selling and about 12 years of tuning I find that most customers will buy a better quality piano if the differences are demonstrated in a logical manner. Those who decide not to opt for better quality do so by choice. Our only obligation is to attempt to educate. From then on, they are on their own. I'm sure you have been in homes where the customer apologizes for their medi ocre instrument. Those people made their choice usually based on price. I'm sure you have also been in homes where the people have commented how they wished they had bought a nicer piano. But have you ever heard a customer say "I wish I had bought a cheaper instrument", though? That just doesn't happen. If your business is like mine the majority of home pianos you encounter are not very good pianos. I contend that if these people were educat ed better most would buy better quality. David and Jack are both right, of course, because ours is not a perfect world. But then has anybody out there ever met the perfect piano? Thanks for letting me "chew the fat". Bill Scharbrough. RPT
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