<HTML>In a message dated 12/31/00 10:56:50 AM Central Standard Time, cedel@supernet.com (Clyde Hollinger) writes: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">I am basically happy with my position in the piano service world. It would be nice to service a more exclusive clientele, I suppose, but I like my clients, my clients like me, and the world needs people like me.  We can't all care for only the top of the line. </BLOCKQUOTE> No need to think of yourself as anyone in a lower position than anyone else, Clyde.  I know that many ordinary Piano Tuner-Technicians tend to think this way.  Many who start out tuning believe that if they haven't put in a pinblock and rebuilt a Steinway yet then they aren't really legitimate.  Fact is that many rebuilders can't tune well and many rebuilders become rebuilders because tuning just is not what they want to do, at least all of the time. You are providing a service for people who have a piano, whatever kind it may be.  Historically, a really fine piano has always cost what the average wage earner's salary would be for an entire year, not just a month or two's like a diamond ring.  It is no different today.  These are people of modest means, yes, but I'll bet that most homes you enter are well kept, in nice, safe neighborhoods where you can drive right up, park your car and go in. These are people with families to provide for so a $30,000 or more piano won't be found there.  But a gracious housewife or other person is there to greet you, offer you comfort and is respectful and admiring of your skills.   You, in turn, provide a valuable and needed service knowing that what you do benefits the children most of all.  You therefore do the best job you can with whatever skills and extra effort you must put out to see that these people's piano plays and sounds as it should. While we can all admire the type of technician whose clientele is exclusive to expensive, high quality instruments in high profile situations, those kinds of opportunities are rare.  Those kinds of technicians often develop a disdain for any work that seems beneath their stature.  Unfortunately, those are also the kinds of people who are visible and influential and so their opinions are heard, published and seen as a way of think that should be aspired to. This leads many ordinary technicians to develop the wrong attitude about their work and the pianos they service.  You know me well enough to know that I do not have that attitude and I have tried to fight against it by exposing it candidly whenever and wherever I see it.  I've always known you to be a calm, gentle, level headed person who in no way fits the kind of profile I oppose. In my book, you are indeed the kind of person that other young techs should look up to and whose example is worth following.  Keep it up. Happy New Year Let's all celebrate the fact that it is really now the year 2001 Bill Bremmer RPT Madison, Wisconsin</HTML>