info for a journalist

[tune4u@earthlink.net]

I think I can help:

1) There are 88 keys because people wanted at least half an octave of quite
useless notes that are hard to tune.

2) There are 83,356,211 pianos in the world. At any given time, 1,209 of
them are in reasonably good tune.

3) There are 38,256,001 pianos in the U.S. A third of these need tuning.
Another third also need fixing, adjusting, regulating. The remaining third
are about equally divided between well-tuned pianos that play well and
pianos that died 30 years ago but are still kept as flower stands, dust
traps, and mouse nesting boxes.

These figures are based on WAG data but are surely accurate enough for most
journalists.

Alan Barnard


-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org]On
Behalf Of Kent Swafford
Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2003 3:43 PM
To: Pianotech; College Technicians
Subject: Fwd: info for a journalist


The PTG receives occasional research requests from journalists. We want
to help, but have limited ability to do so.

Can anyone answer the following questions, citing sources?

Thanks,

Kent Swafford


Begin forwarded message:

> Why 88 keys on a piano?
> How many pianos are there in the world?
> How many pianos are there in the U S?

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