<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><BR><DIV><DIV>On Oct 16, 2007, at 7:59 AM, Scott E. Thile wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Jeff, I still question the notion you have that private sector work is some</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">how less necessary. What about piano teachers and their more serious</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">students, concert venues, concert artists, accompanists, and in my case,</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">churches where I tuned several times a year to coincide with major services,</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">etc.. Lots of high level, very critical work is needed and done in the</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">private sector.</FONT></P></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>If you read the whole post, you would have seen that I defined what I meant by "as necessary" as "the average volume of work required in the institution is higher per instrument than in the private sector." And that's being conservative. I could easily have said "exponentially higher".</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><SPAN class="Apple-style-span">My piano teachers and serious students pianos don't require as much attention by <B><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="text-decoration: underline;">far</SPAN></B>. I have one high level teacher who insists that her students all have their pianos tuned at least twice a year (which they don't), but if we can get to hers every 12 to 18 months that's actually pretty par for the course, and I always tend to find her piano in better condition than I can keep these at the university that I tend to once a month! Sure it needs a rebuild but that will wait until she gets both daughters through their music degrees (there's that priorities thing again). One of her more serious students spends more money with me than most of my other clients. He has a very nice newer Knabe grand that we tune every 6 months. According to him (and backed up by his wife), he practices 3 hours a day. That's high use for any home piano. When I come around, the touch ups that are required are so minimal that I feel guilty about taking his money. Another of our highest regarded teachers has a very nice Steinway I've tuned once in 5 years. It just doesn't require much. At first I thought he just had a high tolerance for a detuned piano. No. It stays very well in tune and in good voice. And these are just examples of what is common among my private sector clientele. I can keep private sector pianos in far superior condition to my university inventory with a fraction of the amount of work.</SPAN></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Same for churches. Yes, most churches could use more frequent work, but they just can't justify the expense of monthly tunings. And besides, the music you hear in lots of churches actually sounds better on untuned pianos. A whole style of music has evolved that sounds better when the piano isn't quite in tune. It just isn't necessary to do as much work there. But even in the churches which do place a higher priority on their instruments, they don't ask me to tune just before the performance and stay in case there is a problem. It just isn't necessary. We tune and service regularly and the work lasts quite a long time. Another church I tune for has a 10 year old Steinway B. It's going on 2 years since it was last tuned and the last time I was there for a service it sounded just fine for what they use it for.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>And not all of us tune for concert venues and concert artists. I fill in for one of the local guys on occasion, but if a piano technician tried to survive on just tuning for the professional performances in most markets he'd starve. There is some of that work, but the amount of work needed to keep up the concert grand for the fine arts venue next door is a very small fraction of what it takes for our concert grands in the music school. It isn't being used for 3 recitals a day and rehearsals. A couple performances a month is about it. The tech tuned it for a performance this past Saturday and it seems to me he said it had been about 6 weeks since he'd been there.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><SPAN class="Apple-style-span">It is not that private sector work is not necessary, and I clarified that. But it will take you at least 1500 private sector customers to generate the same amount of work that 40 pianos in an institution <B>need</B>. There isn't the same level of usage and there aren't the same problems with climate control. In the institution, we're supposed to be taking students of music to the next level, and it should be our obligation to provide instruments (tools) in such condition as to enable that. We are in the business of using pianos up to 16 hours a day here in almost every room in the building. It is a much more intensive usage environment. It is necessary that more work is required to maintain them.</SPAN></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>We try to sell that pianos in the private sector require a minimum of two tunings per year. And a portion of them do. But a lot of that is us selling our business to keep a steady income. Lots of that work just isn't as necessary as we think it should be. Or it hasn't been in my experience.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>And I should also clarify one other thing that might have some of you upset by what I wrote. This might be where Mike misunderstood me so much. I was talking about the tooners out there who just aren't capable of high level work. I wasn't talking about RPT level and above technicians who are doing good work. I was talking about the guys who's skill level limits them to tuning grandma's uprights and old spinets. The lower skilled people out there can still make a better living than what these CAUT salaries are currently paying.</DIV><BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">For private sector work I think it just depends on how you structure your</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">clientele. I'd hate to be depending on the low end these days. The guys I</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">know that do are starting to see a huge drop off.</FONT></P></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>You can't live just on high end work in our area. There isn't enough of it to go around. We have to be chameleons. I price my private sector work towards the higher end clientele, but you still have to take low end work if you're going to do this full time.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BR></DIV><BR><DIV> <SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><DIV>Jeff Tanner, RPT</DIV><DIV>University of South Carolina</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"></SPAN> </DIV><BR></BODY></HTML>