Paul, Back in 1990, a rep from Schmitts in Minneapolis told us that the national average was 1 piano in 10 homes (10%) and that the Twin Cities area had about 1 piano per 4 homes(25%). Be careful not to confuse homes with population. Population is about 4 people per 1 home. These stats vary greatly. Low income and blue collar areas tend to have less pianos, church areas tend to have more. I've always been told that you need a population of about 30,000 people to support a technician full time but I cannot see how. In theory, a technician who primarily tunes can schedule appointments 2 hours apart. (tuning 1.5 hours, extras 15 minutes and travel to the next one 15 minutes.) 4 tunings per day. 20 tunings per week. 50 weeks per year = 1000 tunings per year. Therefore cost of tuning times 1000 = ideal yearly income full time. $60 per tune=$60,000 per year, if you can manage to stay on course. Also, if you can find a way to retain customers (ie. prescheduling) then you should need about 1000-2000 customers tuning yearly or 750 to 1500 tuning 6 monthly. Ideally, a home has 2 parents, 2.5 children, a decent piano, income and isn't sports dominated. Take an area with churches, no competition, a good dealer and you should be able to carry this a little further. 40,000 population means 10,000 homes. One home in 10 has a piano. That means there are 1000 pianos. Frankly, I'm in an area that is too small but I just love it here so I am changing careers and moving my business to part time. That stats are accurate. Good luck to you. Ron Shiflet PS, All of these stats came from technicians who were TOO busy. 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 --------- End forwarded message ----------
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