The Bad News

[David Love]

A bit Malthusian don't you think.  I think we are a long way from this.  As 
others have mentioned, even if the ETD's develop to the point of not needing 
aural input to make various judgment calls, a big issue with tuning is 
stability and control.  In my experience that took years of practice to feel 
confident that the piano would stay where I put it and to be able to do it a 
reasonable amount of time.  Given the option of buying an relatively 
expensive device and tools, struggling for several hours to put on a not so 
stable tuning or pay someone a hundred dollars to take care of it for you, I 
don't think we are in any danger.  Now, when the piano develops to the point 
of having computer driven tuning pins that sense the overall tension/pitch 
and make adjustments as needed so that the piano actually never goes out of 
tune: then I'll worry.  Of course, by then I'll be more worried about 
cloning a duplicate of myself and transferring my memory so I can start 
over.  Quite possibly, my career choices might be different then.

David Love


>From: LHSBAND440@AOL.COM
>Reply-To: pianotech@ptg.org
>To: pianotech@ptg.org
>Subject: The Bad News
>Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 07:09:28 EST
>
>In a message dated 3/16/01 11:21:08 PM Eastern Standard Time,
>drose@dlcwest.com writes:
>
>
> > http://www.middlebury.edu/~harris/piano.html
> >
> >
>
>The bad news is that this is soon to be the future of the piano tuning
>industry.  With ETD's becoming more and more accurate, the common piano
>player will be able to tune a piano to the same accuracy of a good piano
>tuner.  The only saving grace to the piano tuner of the future is that one,
>people won't have the interest to tuning their piano and two, they won't be
>able to afford to purchase a tuning device.  Repair will be the area in 
>which
>the piano technician will still be able to make consistent money.  As ETD's
>develop even more and more it will also be the piano tuner who advances to
>this stage that will be able to keep the profession going.  The days of the
>aural tuner is and will slowly diminish.  How many remember the days when 
>the
>private citizen wasn't able to pump his own gas.  Now, gone is the day when
>the attendant comes out and pumps your gas on a regular fill-up.  This will
>soon be the way of the piano tuning profession.  We will be called by those
>clients that don't care to tune or those who tune their own piano but need 
>a
>repair or something that is beyond their ability to fix.  With the Reblitz
>book on the market and many home correspondence courses this number or 
>people
>who will need us to administer a repair to their piano will also be greatly
>reduced to those who screw it up so bad that they need to call a
>tuner-technician.  I my opinion the rebuilding and restoration area will 
>also
>be the area that the piano tuner-technician will be able to still make
>adequate money.  My suggestions to the future tuners are as follows.  Still
>learn to tune aurally but only concentrate on unisons and octaves, become
>very skilled in the use of an accurate ETD and work toward eye had
>coordination more than ear hand.  I would say 40% ear hand and 60% eye 
>hand.
>Tune as good and professionally as possible and judge yourself not by the
>letters you have after your name but the number of satisfied customers that
>you retain.  Work on your bench skills for they will be your bread and 
>butter
>for extra income and learn, learn, learn from every piano you work on 
>because
>as the futures progresses the playing field has just been leveled for all
>tuners.  It has to be said and accepted that soon will be the day if not 
>here
>today that anyone can tune a piano and in some cases just as good as the
>experienced professional.
>
>Sincerely,
>Leo Silverman

_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com