I heard a professional pianist interviewed on the radio a couple of months ago, and he had done some research and found that Honolulu has the highest number of pianos per capita, than any other city. We have almost 1 million people living on Oahu. Taking the 19% rule, (that's how many pianos there should be in a given geographical area), that would mean there are about 190,000 pianos on Oahu. Given that one piano tuner can make a comfortable living with about 2000 pianos, Honolulu could, conceivably, support about 95 piano tuners. As far as I know, there are about 10 full timers, and another 10 - 15 part timers. But don't pack up and move, yet, The cost of living here is very high. Unless you come here with about $100,000 in your pocket, you'll never make it the first year. It helped that I was given referrals by another piano tuner, I did some part time work for a while for a dealer, and I bought the customer file from the widow of a tuner who had died. The chances of a new tuner getting those three things at once when they get here are pretty slim. It has taken me a year and half, and just because I have 2 good months in a row, doesn't mean I'm home free. Although the people are extremely friendly, they are also clickish, in that it takes a long time for them to trust you. That is why I am so glad that the referrals are finally starting to come in. Willem -----Original Message----- From: AAA Piano Works, LLC <aaapianoworks at verizon.ne t> To: pianotech at ptg.org Sent: Sun, 4 Jan 2009 12:12 pm Subject: Re: [pianotech] good news, bad news Dang! Are there that many pianos in Hawaii? From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of wimblees at aol.com Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2009 10:57 AM To: Pianotech at PTG.org Subject: [pianotech] good new, bad news Aloha First the good news. Although November was the worst months I had since coming to Hawaii, December turned out to be the best, with over $10,000 in income. And so far, I've gotten 10 appointments in just the last 4 days, and January is fast filling up. What makes me very encouraged is that most of the new appointments I'm getting are "I got your name from..." Word of mouth is starting to pay off. Now for the bad news. My wife and I have been in Colorado Springs since Dec. 26th. The weather has been nice, for Colorado, with day time temperatures in the 50's. But this morning we woke up to 10" of snow, 11 degrees, and a wind chill of probably below zero. I haven't seen this much snow since I moved to Alabama 8 years ago. Our son and daughter in law went to Park City for a nice vacation, so this morning I've got to get out there and shovel snow. I realize for some of you this is normal, but for me, ... well, let’s just say, we're flying back to Hawaii on Wednesday. I know, life sucks. :) Happy New Year everyone. Willem (Wim) Blees, RPT Piano Tuner /Technician Mililani, Oahu, HI 808-349-2943 Author of: The Business of Piano Tuning available from Potter Press www.pianotuning.com Get a free MP3 every day with the Spinner.com Toolbar. Get it Now. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20090104/1b8e41e1/attachment.html>
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