Happy Statistics

[jpiesik@arinc.com]

Hi Paul,

I don't have any hard statistics for you, but I have tried to work the numbers
as I find this subject interesting (we all should if we're interested in job
security).

Anyways, here's how my logic of guestimation works (get out your calculators):
Figure about 300 million people in the US.  Figure about 3-4 members per family.
 That gives us about 80 million households in the US.  Figure about 20-30% of
those households have servicable pianos.  That leaves about 20 million pianos in
the US that require periodic service.  Now go to any major city and look in the
yellow pages - you'll find that there are roughly about 50 piano tuners per any
major city in the US.  If you figure there are about 150-250 major cities (with
at least about 1 million in population) in the US we find that there are about
100,000 pianos in a given major US city.  And there are about 10,000 piano
technicians in the US.  That leaves about 2000 pianos per technician.  But you
have to account for the fact that the average piano owner services their piano
only about every 1-5 years.  So realistically, every technician, in a major
metropolitan city, will have about 800 pianos per year to service.  If every US
technician works about 250 days per year in the field, they must service about
3-4 pianos per day (seems about right doesn't it?).

But remember, not all technicians work full time.  And GOOD technicians do more
work since they are in higher demand.  Looks to me as though there is PLENTY OF
WORK for all of us.  I even predict that there will be a VERY increased demand
for GOOD COMPLETE piano service over the next 5-20 years, for several reasons,
but that is a topic for another discussion!

Happy tuning!!

Optimistically yours,

John Piesik
Piesik's Piano Service
Carlsbad, CA
JPIESIK@ARINC.COM


Hi all,

Does anyone out there know how many households in the US own pianos, and
how many piano tuner/technicians there are to service them.

I have a feeling that the ratio of technicians to pianos is quite low.

I'm doing a class session for our music 101 class on careers in music, so
this information might be helpful to me.

Also, any other statistical tidbits regarding our profession would be useful.

Thanks,
Paul Kupelian, RPT
kupelian@oswego.edu