statistics

[Wimblees@aol.com]

In a message dated 96-12-09 12:25:16 EST, you write:

>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
>
>



Paul

I don't have an accurate figure for the number of households for the entire
nation, but one of the manufactureres once came up with a formula to figure
out how many pianos there are in a given geographical area. Take the
population of a given area, say a county or large city, and multiply that by
19%. That is approximately how many pianos there are. This includes all the
pianos in churches, schools, hotels, retirement homes, etc. I don't know if
there is a way to know how many households have pianos, but I would think
that one in every 4 homes have a piano. So if you know how many households
there are in a given geographical area, you can figure that one out also. And
even that might not be accurate, because in the economically depressed areas
of a town there might only be  one piano in every 10 homes, while in the
wealthy subburbs there might be  one piano in every two homes. But then in
those homes, the piano is there more for looks, than for playing.

As far as how many techs there are, I think the home office has a mailing
list approaching 10,000. But that includes people who inquired about piano
tuning once, and found it was too much work. I think a more accurate figure
is twice the number of members in the PTG, which would be about 7500.  In St.
Louis, we have about 75 or 80 piano tuners in a metropolitan area of 2 and a
half million, with 50 of them belonging to the Guild, but that includes
severla part timers, and 3 or 4 hobiests. In the Twin Cities, with a simmilar
population, there are 100 members in the chapter, and you've got to think
there are more piano tuners than that there.

Maybe someone else has some better figures.