Gregor, Yes, I play. In fact, I was jamming with a young (26 year old to my 54) friend last night. I noticed how badly I need to employ myself on my OWN piano. I can't afford me though....:-) I started playing piano when I was 15, and developed a real affinity for it. 2 years later I was a piano performance major at San Jose State. 3 years later, I quit school to "find" myself, get a job, and schlep around for 5 years or so sort of trying to work as a musician. I got a job as a mover/helper/tuning apprentice at a store 30 years ago, and have been in the piano business ever since, except for 2 years of stay-at-home-fatherhood from 1999 to 2001, when I became self-employed as a tech. I still play a fair amount, and I'm glad I have the young dude to get me motivated to keep a few chops handy. Think I'll tune my piano today, even though I can't afford my rates. The killer octave sounds nasty! <div style="CLEAR: both">Dave Stahl, RPT Dave Stahl Piano Service 650-224-3560 dstahlpiano@sbcglobal.net http://dstahlpiano.net/ -----Original Message----- From: Gregor _ <karlkaputt@hotmail.com> To: pianotech@ptg.org Sent: Sat, 2 Jun 2007 4:13 am Subject: Do you play piano? </div> <div id=AOLMsgPart_0_451fda4f-b219-42bf-ae87-ad5f5301d420 style="FONT-SIZE: 12px; MARGIN: 0px; COLOR: #000; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Sans-Serif; BACKGROUND-COLOR: #fff">Are there techs outside who don´t play piano? If so: how came in your mind to become a piano tech? As a rough guess I think here in Germany there might be about 20 percent of techs who don´t play. Here it is usual to learn a profession by aprenticeship when you are 16 - 20 years old. To start an aprenticeship beyond the age of 25 is very uncommon. On the other hand: you don´t have any possibility to learn that profession lagter by attending commercial classes because such shools don´t exist. I understand that many people would like to learn piano tuning/repair, because they play piano and their first career in another profession was not sucessfull. But it´s hard to understand why anybody should want to learn that profession without a relation to pianos. In my class there were some folks who decided for piano tech because the father aranged the aprenticeship or because the best friend did so, too. What´s about you? Gregor _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today it's FREE! <A href="http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/" target=_blank>http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/</A> </div> <div class="AOLPromoFooter"> <hr style="margin-top:10px;" /> AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at <a href="http://www.aol.com?ncid=AOLAOF00020000000437" target="_blank">AOL.com</a>. </div>