Ed
I read somewhere that the mean age of PTG members is about 59. That means there are as many members older than that as younger. I believe one of the reasons we are an "older" profession is because for many of us it's a second or even third career, (like Tom R.). What would be interesting is to find out what the mean age of our membership was 10, 20, or 30 years ago.
Our membership has grown over the last 30 years, which is not only due to our marketing efforts, but I think it's also because more people going into the profession. I did the math a couple of months ago, estimating the number of technicians to take care of the pianos, compared to the population of the USA. I can't remember the exact number, but there are actually more piano tuners now than there were 30 years ago.
Just another point of view.
Wim
-----Original Message-----
From: Ed Foote <a440a at aol.com>
To: pianotech <pianotech at ptg.org>
Sent: Wed, Jul 7, 2010 10:31 am
Subject: [pianotech] Are we fading?
Greetings,
In this months Journal, Clarence Zeches mentions that the average age of "our technicians", (I take that to mean Guild membership), is in the 50's or later. Judging by the gray hair and wrinkles at the conventions, (mine too!) I will not dispute that. This was in response to the question of "Where are the techs going to be coming from in 20 or 30 years"?
My personal observation is that the average age of tuners is much lower, but that includes the non-Guild tuners, many of whom have an ETD, hammer, mute and maybe a screwdriver but no more. It is easy money, and many of the bread and butter tunings are being done, (poorly), by part-timers.
Is the Guild slowly representing fewer and fewer of the people that are actually doing the tuning out there?
Ed Foote RPT
http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html
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