[pianotech] Traveling tuner

[tnrwim at aol.com]

>From Israel



I don't know how prevalent this is now, but even as recently as the mid 1970s (when I lived in New Mexico, and before I got into the piano business) I heard of so called "route tuners" who serviced mostly rural areas, where there was insufficient population density to support a resident tuner. (I think in our area there was a guy out of Texas who worked New Mexico and southern/western Colorado back then...)


Back in the early '90's, I did some tuning in Southeaster Colorado and Northeastern New Mexico. At that time I heard about a traveling tuner who served the small towns on the Great Plains. He was more or less like a migrant worker, tuning pianos in the south in the winter moths, and traveling north in the summer. I guess it's not a bad way to earn a living, if you don't mind living out of a camper all the time. 

One time, on my way back to St. Louis, I stopped in a small Kansas town for gas. The attendant asked me what I did for a living. When he heard I tuned pianos, he said, "I've heard about guys like you".  I guess he thought I was one of those itinerant tuners. 

Wim






-----Original Message-----
From: Israel Stein <custos3 at comcast.net>
To: pianotech <pianotech at ptg.org>
Sent: Tue, Oct 12, 2010 4:13 pm
Subject: [pianotech] Traveling tuner


>Tue, 12 Oct 2010 13:36:07 -0700  rob at mccallpiano.com wrote: 

> 
> ...they already have a tuner that comes by once or twice a year (I can't remember which he said...), but on a regular schedule.
> 
> The interesting part is that the tuner is from Texas! Realize that I live in Southern California. They told me this tuner travels around and is booked up to a year in advance, traveling all over the country to tune.
> 
> Has anyone ever heard of such a thing? Or maybe it's one of us on the list? Talk about a mileage charge... :-) I'd be curious how this tuner runs a successful business with a perceived high level of overhead (food, gas, lodging, etc.). Or maybe he operates out of a motorhome? Nonetheless, it seemed like an intriguing concept if not somewhat impractical, for me at least.

Rob,

I don't know how prevalent this is now, but even as recently as the mid 1970s (when I lived in New Mexico, and before I got into the piano business) I heard of so called "route tuners" who serviced mostly rural areas, where there was insufficient population density to support a resident tuner. (I think in our area there was a guy out of Texas who worked New Mexico and southern/western Colorado back then...) They worked just like your guy - schedule tunings way in advance, come into an area, spend a week or two there (probably had regular arrangements for housing), tune all the pianos within a reasonable driving radius, and then move on to the next area, traveling in a loop that brought them back home. They lived on the road for months at a time... With growing suburbanization, urban sprawl and rural towns becoming bedroom communities for large cities due to a more efficient transportation network (Interstate highways), it became possible for resident tuners to survive in formerly rural areas - so these "route tuners" became mostly obsolete. Most probably retired - and couldn't sell their "routes" (I have seen "routes" advertised for sale...). And this lifestyle doesn't seem to be conducive to producing heirs to the business... But I guess that between Texas and Southern California there is still enough rural small-town America left to keep this route tuner in business - along with loyal long-time customers in now urbanized areas like your piano store owner...

Israel Stein  


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