for ED voicing learning curve

[KeyKat88 at aol.com]

gREETINGS Ed, 

           First of all, dont worry!...Your concerns are logical and I feared 
the exact same ones as you now face. After finishing tech school, I just came 
home, had bus. cards made and called the phone company to place an ad in the 
Yel pages. I just dove in and took the customers' problems as they arose. If 
you had the guidance of a  pro, and you have done some repairs, and have 
mechanical ablilty with the piano parts, and can figure the stuff out . you should 
be fine. 

 In the locality where I live, there are not so many concert pianists. Most 
people who have a piano around here are families who have children as beginners 
and chuurches and schools  Therefore most of these people only have a demand 
for the piano to be in #1 in tune and #2 all the keys should work and #3 not 
sound so harsh (as grooved hammers can sound) As I was saying in my e-mail, the 
only voicing that I have done is to tone the hammers down alittle and it 
works. People realyly appreciate the difference a little bit of sugar coating does.

           When I first began to tune it took me 3 to 4 hours to tune a 
piano. Now days my time is down to 1 1/2 hours unless it tis a pitch raise. Some 
tunings like that can take 2 1/2 hours. Just do the job right. Dont worry too 
much about taking too long. Now...If your tuning time is 6 hours or something th
en get a practice piano and get your time down. I would say 4 hours is the 
absolute maximum that a customer should have to endure to wait for a tuner to 
finish up. Your tuning time will come down with practice. Take your time to trace 
out a problem on a piano when confronted with it. If you think you cant 
repair a job, be honest and tell the customer you may have to consult with a senior 
technician to be advised on the problem...I actually have doen this a few 
times, in my first year! Also know that this pianotech list welcomes 
rookie/beginner questions and professional questions alike. 

Hope this helps
Julia Gottshall
Reading, PA

In a message dated 2/14/2007 4:29:48 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
edmiller3 at hotmail.com writes:
I am about to take more aggressive action to gain a clientele. How did you 
go about this in the very beginning (the stage where you were skillful 
enough to start offering your services, but not so skilled that you were as 
competant as many other piano technicians)? I worry about things, such as: 
that it still takes too long for me to do a tuning, that I'll be confronted 
with many situations where I cannot adequately solve a problem, that if I 
charge to little for my services now it will be difficult to raise them at 
the fast rate that my skills are increasing, among other worries...
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