Hi All,

I took a 3-month Piano Technician class earlier this year and since then I've been practicing on my old uprights here at home and have tuned a few pianos for friends. I'm now faced with a dilemma; I need to make some money and either I go out and find any old job or I start charging for piano tuning, thus gaining experience in the process. Given my lack of experience I feel less than confident in my skills, but I'm thinking about telling people I'm just learning and charge them appropriately - maybe half of the lower end of what the pros around here charge. I would appreciate your thoughts on this idea. Thanks much.

Tune at least a couple hundred pianos first, preferably bottom end ones that have not been tuned by a pro recently. Last thing you want is to leave a piano in worse tune than it was when you got there...even if you did it for free. Get some feedback from other techs, your past school or PTG members if you know any. When you can tune decently in under 2 hours you can even start off part time until you gain enough confidence and reputation to take it to the streets. Good luck with your efforts.

Where are you from?

If you are in U.S. or in Canada, the best thing you can do is to join the PTG, assist to the meetings and conventions and take your exams to become an RPT. It's a long way, maybe two years from now.

Good luck!

I would recommend trying to get some work at a store, working on rentals and less expensive instruments to cut your teeth and get valuable repair experience as well as tuning practice. You can learn the trade without worrying too much about damaging customers' pianos. If you work hard and learn quickly, the store will should give you warranty tunings and referrals.

I was in your boat about 30 years ago. It's been a long voyage, but well worth the trials!

Kelle:

It does not sound like you are ready to tune full-time right now. Get a regular, full-time job and tune on the side at a reduced rate. As you get better with more customers and better pay, the tuning work may just push you out of the regular job.

Thanks, everyone, for your replies. You've confirmed what I thought, which is that I'm not at all ready. I'll check out the local music stores, join PTG, and practice, practice, practice!


Thanks again.

Kelle
Aspiring Tuner/Technician

Beware bargain-basement pricing. The danger is that it's awfully difficult to raise prices on established customers...espcially, like, 100% raises...

Yes, practice, practice, practice. Get a mentor to evaluate your home tunings (this is where PTG affiliation really shines). Get a "store gig" and let them book your low rate tunings at the beginning. But even at the beginning, keep the rates for "your" customers low, but in line with the prevailing rates in your area. "Low end" is one thing: trying to push into the low end when you've already charged them half price will be a nightmare.

You also don't want to be known as "the cheap guy"...

Plus, if you start out by shooting unrealistically low prices to clients, you're only hurting yourself in the end...tuning for 1/2 rate is, as JDelmore says, a nightmare in the making when you consider your business reputation...remember, whatever you decide to charge, that you'll be trying twice as hard and taking twice as long, for 1/2 the money??? That means you'll be working for 1/4 the prevailing rate, per hour...and later it'll be complicated to raise pricing to a living wage...(1/2 devided by ought, into another 1/2 = .233387, or something like that! lol)

Listen to the pros, and practice alot.

Best of luck, by the way!

RPD

As the others have said, if you pigeonhole yourself as "the cheap guy," you'll find it hard to reinvent yourself at a later date... Giving highly discounted rates to stores is pretty normal, but that's in exchange for the opportunity to learn and for multiple referrals.