Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum Question about the business end from a new tuner.

100 pianos does sound like a more realistic goal than 1000. Of course, #1000 will hopefully be a lot better than #100. I think part of the "art" of business is being able to decide when your product is good enough for the intended use. So, will #101 be good enough for Grandma's old upright that I will feel fine about charging for it? Probably. Will #101 be good enough for a professional musician who makes their living with their piano. Maybe so, maybe not. They might need a more experienced tuner.

Hi Martha: I think the underlying question is how to earn an honest living in the trade at a level commensurate with experience. I am not sure what the opportunities are in 2012. However, years ago some of us honed our skill by doing wholesale floor work for a dealer. I recall one dealer in particular who had a beginner do the umpteen tunings required on new pianos (at wholesale), and would later call in a veteran to do the fine tuning at near full retail - usually preparatory to a demo for a prospect. You might consider visiting with the dealers in your area, if you haven't already done so. Wholesale work isn't a lot of fun at the outset, but it has promise of great reward in the long run.

Even if they cannot tell a passable tuning now, their ears may develop if they get used to hearing the piano in tune, if it's tuned regularly. If there is a piano student in the home, this becomes a very important selling point... that the student will develop his/her ear if they practice on a tuned piano. If they get used to hearing an out-of-tune piano, those ears will never develop to their full potential.

Yes, the owners may not be able to tell the difference. But their friend, neighbor, cousin, or piano teacher who comes to the house may well be a serious critic with huge ears. You don't want anyone to ask: " This piano is way off - who tuned it?"

I have a couple of piano students right now that practice on horribly out of tune pianos. These are on my short list of pianos to practice tuning on, because it pains me to hear them played. They are both beginner students and I don't want them thinking a piano is supposed to sound like that. Right now it is just a matter of coordinating a time convenient to both of us.

Yes, the owners may not be able to tell the difference. But their friend, neighbor, cousin, or piano teacher who comes to the house may well be a serious critic with huge ears. You don't want anyone to ask: " This piano is way off - who tuned it?" [/quote]

No, I want them to ask, "This piano sounds really great. Who tuned it?"

I wasn't saying that is okay to do a mediocre tuning because one could get away with it, just that I have no illusions that many people may not be aware of the difference between and good one and a bad one.

I think you've got it!
Best of luck in your new life of piano technician!

Thanks. I have appreciated your input.

there are 5% of the piano owners that are disappointed with the job of the tuners here .

Some of them are expecting much from their piano

Some only remeber the quality of the job done by a precedent tuner

Some also notice that some tunings dont stay good for long

On the bread and butter part, as Jeff said, many customers just want their piano to be playeable so many tuners dont make the effort to put it at the best level (not particularly for tuning, but for general care, voicing, cleaning, lube, etc)
The same tuners are then in trouble when something unusual happen, and then the more polished ones come and make a good difference, usually, noticed etc...
So gain experience in every aspect of the job even the less enthusiastic ones it will be worth someday.

Another good selling point, for the parents who are hesitant to keep the pianos tuned on a regular basis, is what I like to call the "chiropractic" argument. If a piano goes for a very long period of time without being tuned, there is the risk that the strings may rust themselves in position. Even if you lower the tension before raising, the odds of a string breaking have increased.

Regular tuning is similar to chiropractic adjustment. The strings are moved across the bearing points on a regular basis. It keeps them "limber," like regular chiropractic adjustments, so they don't freeze in position.

Even if you are developing as a tuner, the piano may still benefit from your tuning it, even if your tunings are not absolutely perfect yet. Of course, it's all relative.

I'm getting in late on this one but thought I would share some things that have worked for me from the business side. It's obvious that we need the skills to do the job but then the question is; How do I get customers?

1. I have magnetic signs on my car. Both sides and the back. I think they are tasteful and they generate business for me. They're very inexpensive. Lots of people comment to me how they like them and like my car, a PT Cruiser (the PT could stand for Piano Tuner)

2. I give away a pen with each tuning so people don't forget about me. Many times I've had people hire me because they couldn't remember who tuned it last. I get my pens from National Pen: www.pens.com

3. Leave a card in the piano with the date you tuned it, humidity level, temp and notes about the last tuning. If someone calls you back because the tuning went out the humidity level change could save your reputation.

4. Start a website at www.vistaprint.com You can get a website all the way from free to $29.95 a month. Here's how mine looks: www.thattuningguy.vpweb.com Nowadays you just have to be on the web and this is a very inexpensive way to do it.

5. Get your name on this website: www.pianoacoustics.com Again it can be free or you can pay $10 a year and have a link to your website. I get a lot of hits from this site.

6. Send out tuning reminder post cards every month. I go with the one year anniversary of the last tuning. My customers tell me all the time how they appreciate it.

7. Don't waste your money on a Yellow Pages ad! I think you can just be listed for free but don't pay for an ad. Seventeen years ago when I started it was the only game in town but it's time has passed and it's a waste of money.

8. If you're on google maps you can claim your listing for free and get more info on the web. Once you have a website it may be easier to do this. When I claimed mine I think I was there because of my Yellow Pages ad so if you don't have that I'm not sure how it works. Maybe just having a free listing in the Yellow Pages will get you there.

9. I book tunings all the time by email and texting so if you don't already have those it would be a good idea to get them.

Maybe some of this is helpful to you. Good Luck!

My first ad for piano tuning was in 1994. It was a classified ad for $50 piano tuning. This was about $15 less than the going rate at the time. I had just passed my PTG exams and explained to the few people about the exam process. I remember one client was really happy to give me a chance - some people like to support the new, green, technician. They feel they are getting a good deal for the money, while doing something positive for a member of their community.

The PTG was helpful for finding extra work when I was starting out. After meeting some of the other techs I was able to help out in their shops part time for a little better than minimum wage. My advice to a newbie is: learn to do a decent job on the following tasks:

1. Key bushings
2. Bridle tapes
3. Hammer reshaping
4. Repinning flanges

If you get reasonable efficient at those tasks you can be of real service to a busy technician.

I don't think there is anything wrong with getting paid to practice tuning. Put up some signs on some local bulletin boards and craigslist saying that you are a piano tuning student looking for pianos to tune: Donations graciously accepted. I'm sure many people on a tight budget will take their chances with your work.

Speaking of Craigslist: Some people have trouble selling pianos that are badly out of tune. An interesting strategy would be to contact those sellers and offer to tune them for donation or modest fee. To make it even easier you could offer to defer payment until the piano sells.

The main thing is full disclosure: just let them know exactly what your experience is so that they know what they are getting. Many people are happy to help someone starting out.

I don't mean to offend, daniokeeper, but this sounds like a "snake oil sales pitch". We want to be as straight with our clients as possible. Ultimately the trust you cultivate will pay off better than phony scare tactics.

It is true that 99.5% or more of my clients probably wouldn't be able to identify a medium quality tuning from a high-quality tuning. However, if you can impress that .5% that can really tell the difference they will bring in lots of other work, and the prestige gained by keeping those discriminating clients will substantially raise your credibility in the musical community.

The other major consideration is voicing.

Clients often don't discriminate between voicing and tuning issues. If you leave a piano perfectly tuned with uneven voicing, it will be perceived as more "out of tune" than a "just OK" tuning with nice, even, voicing.

More than one mentor told me to always include at least a little voicing with every tuning. While I won't swear that I do this 100%, I come pretty close and it's made a big difference in my career. In fact I sometimes spend more time voicing than tuning.

The combination of tuning and voicing is what will make clients tell you "this is the best my piano has ever sounded!". Even moderately discriminating clients will recognize a good voicing.

Ryan,

I also don't mean to offend, but this is not snake oil; it is my opinion based on observations of my mere 32+ years of tuning professionally. I am not "relying on phoney scare tactics."

I have seen it. I have dealt with it. A piano that was last tuned 20, 30, 40, or more years ago. When you lower the tension on a string before raising it, nothing happens as you keep dropping the tension until you hear a 'ping" sound as the string comes loose from where it has rusted itself and then the pitch drops... a lot. this may happen on only one or two strings. Or, it may happen on many or most strings.

Is this freezing in position a deliberate part of the design? Not likely. Is this normal? Again, No. After breaking the string(s) free, the string(s) now renders smoothly. It's not supposed to be stuck in position. It rusted there, or some rare case perhaps there is some other other arcane thing happening such as dissimilar metals or contamination. But still, keeping the string moving across the bearing points occasionally is a good thing.

If a client would phone you and explain that her piano had not been tuned in many years, would you NOT warn her of the increased possibility of one or more strings breaking? I assume that you would. To not warn her would be unethical.

If it is ethical to warn her AFTER the 30 years of neglect, why is it unethical to warn her BEFORE the 30 years of neglect?

If you want to cultivate trust with a client, it is important to give them good information, But, it is also important to give them good information in a timely enough manner to actually do them some good.

I think we would all agree that piano wire unmoved for many years is certainly not a good thing; for a variety of very important reasons we need to keep it moving as regularly as is prudent. With this in view, the client needs to be informed of the problems that can ensue by neglecting regular tunings - especially when the piano is new.

When I was a beginner - around 1982 - I read of the above procedure described by daniokeeper in one of the many books on piano technology that I delved into at the time. It could have been in Mr Reblitz' fine work, but I could be mistaken.(My copy is long gone.) Be that as it may, daniokeeper is correct that the use of such method to break a rust collar on old wire at a bearing point really increases the risk of string breakage inasmuch as the counter clockwise turn of the tuning pin may also create a weak point at the coil. In due course, I followed the advice of one of my teachers (the late Jerry Pace), and for the most part, approached any and all piano wire the same: The more time one spends stressing the wire, the greater the risk of breakage; the less time stressing the wire, the less the risk. Therefore, move it quickly. To this end his "snappy" tuning technique proved quite good and, along with other conventional factors, produced a stable tuning. [And exceedingly minimal string breakage]

The conditions that can make it more likely that strings will break are age, humidity, use, and neglect. In my area, humidity is rarely a factor. I noted elsewhere that I tuned a piano last week that had not been tuned since the last time I tuned it, in 1991, but because the piano is not more than 40 years old, and has had no more than normal use, there was little chance that strings would break. It actually tuned up nicely with a single pitch raise before fine tuning. Had the piano been over 100 years old, the probability that strings would break would rise significantly, but 50 or 60 years is rarely a problem.

Tuner error, too. In most cases when one broke on me, I had momentarily lost focus and allowed the tip to angle on the pin and thereby twist the wire at the coil. POP!

daniokeeper,

Thanks for the response. I admit my response to you was too abrassive - I suppose our different perspectives on this may be largely due to the differences in our climates. I just don't find that string breakage issues come down to piano wire rusted onto the bearing surface. I do acknowledge the 'pinging' phenomenon you describe, but I don't come across it very often.

I interpreted the "chiropractic" approach as being a way of talking a client into getting the piano serviced more often than they otherwise would. I have heard others on this forum argue that not getting your piano tuned every six months is going to damage it.

I suppose going 20 years without tuning *might* increase the chance of string breakage slightly, but if the piano is not exposed to excessive dampness I doubt it. Most of the time when a string breaks, it just feels likes its ready to go. I also find that rendering problems more often come from the understring felt then anything else.

I think the chiropractic argument may have more bearing on the action than the strings. I definitely believe that actions that sit for long periods become sluggish. The best remedy for this is to make sure to play it occasionally, which is something we all will admit is a good thing

Bob, I don't understand. How does a tip angled twist a string at the coil?

My apology, Chris, I did not explain this very well. If the tip is not properly seated on the tuning pin, in the turn the pin may flex contrary to a level course causing the wire to twist and break at the pin. When this occurred during one of my tunings such was the only instance where I considered it to be my fault and the wire would be replaced at no charge ( unless the wire was in terrible shape to start with: oxidation, etc.) etc. )