Pianotech

  • 1.  Employment outlook for piano technicians

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 03-18-2023 09:35
      |   view attached

    Greetings all.  I was asked by one of our chapter members if I could, as chapter president, provide her with an official employment outlook for piano technicians.  I thought I'd share it with the group.  See the attachment.

     

    John Gunderson

    Registered Piano Technician

    732-740-6674

    "The tuner alone preserves the tone"

     



  • 2.  RE: Employment outlook for piano technicians

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 03-18-2023 12:08

    Hi John, I think the estimate that 50% of all Americans play piano is extremely high.

    Your colleague also may be interested in the synopsis of Benjamin Gonzalez's (Ben, do I have your last name correct?) survey of piano technicians' income etc.



    ------------------------------
    Patrick Draine RPT
    Billerica MA
    (978) 663-9690
    ------------------------------



  • 3.  RE: Employment outlook for piano technicians

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 03-18-2023 23:33

    It's Sanchez, but that's ok. I haven't been called Gonzalez since leaving California, LOL.

    Here's the link to the survey results:

    https://my.ptg.org/discussion/piano-technicians-survey-results



    ------------------------------
    Benjamin Sanchez, RPT
    Piano Technician / Artisan
    (256) 947-9999
    www.professional-piano-services.com
    ------------------------------



  • 4.  RE: Employment outlook for piano technicians

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 03-19-2023 19:56
    Hello Benjamin. Just wanted to say thank you for writing up the survey
    results. I didn't read it when you posted it the first time around.
    Very interesting and informative.




  • 5.  RE: Employment outlook for piano technicians

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 03-19-2023 10:11

    Patrick, you could be right.  I pulled the figure off the internet, the same place I got the 30,000 new pianos a year.



    ------------------------------
    John Gunderson RPT
    Neptune City NJ
    (732) 740-6674
    ------------------------------



  • 6.  RE: Employment outlook for piano technicians

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 03-19-2023 12:43
    Hello John,
    I agree with Patrick, that 50% seems rather inflated.
    I think that the number of pianos out there keeps increasing because there are still too many tired and worn out pianos that people Industrie on hanging on to. New piano production may be down, but the market is saturated with old instruments. All the more reason to have good repair skills.

    I also think it is worth mentioning the investment in time and patience that a new technician needs to make. Too many would-be technicians have no clue what they’re getting into and begin trying to serve the public with few skills. We need to do better at explaining the educational commitment to future technicians. It takes time to get to that point if a actually making a “living. “


    Regards,
    ~ jeannie

    Jeannie Grassi
    PTG Registered Piano Technician
    Bainbridge Island, WA
    206-842-3721
    grassipianos@gmail.com




  • 7.  RE: Employment outlook for piano technicians

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 03-19-2023 16:00

    The other thing to keep in mind is the need for new technicians to replace those who retire. According to my survey results, 67% of piano technicians are over age 50, with 45% being over 65. We can expect to see a lot of job openings in the next few years to replace those who retire.



    ------------------------------
    Benjamin Sanchez, RPT
    Piano Technician / Artisan
    (256) 947-9999
    www.professional-piano-services.com
    ------------------------------



  • 8.  RE: Employment outlook for piano technicians

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 03-19-2023 17:17
    Benjamin,
    And, those demographic realities affect PTG membership as well. PTG may experience lower member numbers for more than a decade, until the next large demographic, (30 somethings) become disenchanted with their corporate jobs and start looking to becoming independent and work for themselves. 

    Colleges are already becoming aware of the shortage of piano technicians with more advanced skills. Worse yet, universities may not be willing to pay what technicians should demand for a staff position. They will limp blissfully along believing they can save some money and just hire out the occasional round of tuning, if that. That's the administrator style of piano service management-ignore reality and save money, all the while believing they're doing the piano technician a favor by providing contacts to faculty and outside clients. 

    Richard West





  • 9.  RE: Employment outlook for piano technicians

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 03-19-2023 18:50

    It seems that most, or a lot, of piano technicians don't retire till their mid 70's, so those openings might stretch out for a while.

    Another way to look at this attrition is that it is mirroring the slow down in manufacturing and sales (in the US) which has actually been going on since the early 90's. That was when people started opting for keyboards to see if their children might take to music, entry level pianos accounted for a huge percentage of new piano sales. This might not have been too apparent because pianos are so long lived, but coupled with reduced manufacturing the piano stock is dwindling. 

    Apparently this also mirrors a decline in the Trades in general in the US. https://www.axios.com/2023/03/18/technical-worker-shortage-trade-education-construction.

    Btw, the number 8,000 has now been mentioned a couple of times as the number of piano technicians in the US, I wonder about that, it seems low to me.



    ------------------------------
    Steven Rosenthal RPT
    Honolulu HI
    (808) 521-7129
    ------------------------------



  • 10.  RE: Employment outlook for piano technicians

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 03-19-2023 19:24
    The mean age for PTG members has been in the late 50's for a long time. I agree with Steve that most piano tuners retire in the mid to late 70's. But it's been like that, too, for a long time. 

    When I was in my 20's, there was a concern that attendance at classical music concerts was going to dwindle as older people died off. There was also a concern that music schools would disappear because there would not be enough young people wanted to enter the classical music filed. 

    Here it is 50 years later, and there are still mostly "old" people attending classical music performances, listening to orchestras made up of mostly older musicians. But from a report I read several years ago, most university music schools are bursting at the seams. 

    My thoughts are that, yes, there are fewer new pianos made in this country, but there are lots of them being made in Asia, and there are still hundreds of thousands of pianos that have been made over the last century that will also need to be maintained. 

    We are concerned that there won't be enough piano technicians to take care of this country's pianos. I believe we're going to have this same conversation in 50 years. 

    Wim