Need your piano tuned?

[Boarman03]

The range that I have encountered is $90 to $150 within 15 miles.

I've been telling ours she needs to raise her rate to $120. She has been tuning pianos since she was 10 years old. She has a Music degree and has taught my kids for 14+ years, and tuned our pianos since 2019. She's taught me a lot about music and pianos. I decided I would learn to play the piano and guitar starting in the middle of May of 2021.

I don't think I'll ever make it to advanced, but I'll do the best I can while I can.

She's teaching me how to tune my own piano. But I'd never do it like you or her. I have other places my short time is required. But doing my own I will have no problem.

[Edge]

5 hours ago, Boarman03 said:

I started learning two and a half years ago, and I'm over 60. Spend 15 minutes twice a day, we waste more time than that, and after some frustration with muscle memory, you will gain a joy and start to feel a freedom that's very unique and special. I'm starting to be able to read Bass and Treble clefts almost at the same time, although slowly. 

I promise it is worth the cost and effort. My piano gets tuned once a year minimum, but I try for twice. My daughter got a piano recently and I pay for hers as well.

Good electric pianos don't require tuning but there is no substitute for the sound of a real piano.

Every piano's keys feel differently. Some are stiffer, harder to press, while some are more narrow.

Practice, practice, practice makes the difference. Everytime I pass by my piano I try to play one of my current, easy songs.

You started something great. Don't stop and have regrets later. Overall, pianos are one of the cheapest "hobbies" out there.

Good luck! Hang in there. It's worth it! And so are you.

Best wishes.

 

Good advice, bro. I took piano lessons from age 10-17, played about daily following 10 years, enjoyed the classics. I'm between pianos momentarily  but I'll probably get this one.

Started banjo about 10 months ago and I love it but the arthritis in my hands make my thumb digits feel disconnected.

Oh well, a constant reminder I'm no kid anymore. 

[Boarman03]

24 minutes ago, Edge said:

Good advice, bro. I took piano lessons from age 10-17, played about daily following 10 years, enjoyed the classics. I'm between pianos momentarily  but I'll probably get this one.

Started banjo about 10 months ago and I love it but the arthritis in my hands make my thumb digits feel disconnected.

Oh well, a constant reminder I'm no kid anymore. 

I relate, but no arthritis. Just hard worked muscles that don't always cooperate like I think they should.

Deeply regret not putting in the time when I was "young". Still, I have 1 to 20 years left?

Guitar is a little bit of a struggle finger picking.

Keep going. I'm jealous.

 

 

 

[CatfishKev]

5 hours ago, Moondizzle said:

I am on the low end. I only did a 2 year apprenticeship under Pete Coleman. So I don’t feel worthy to charge the typical $250 and up that his. Wish I would have stuck with it when I was younger but life called and I had to focus on supporting my family. So now I tune pianos as a side gig that my time allows for it more. Pete told me I could charge up to $175 for my skill level and that I could advertise on my own as it wouldn’t conflict with his customer base. So here I am!

I spent too many years as a contractor doing a better job then others for less money.  In retrospect I wouldn't do it that way again.  Do yourself a favor and charge what you are worth.  You need to make a living not a wage.  If your mentor says you are worth 175 that is what you should be charging.  Not this time around for this particular post because you already named your price. But next time around or on craigslist be fair to yourself.  

[Edge]

4 hours ago, Boarman03 said:

I relate, but no arthritis. Just hard worked muscles that don't always cooperate like I think they should.

Deeply regret not putting in the time when I was "young". Still, I have 1 to 20 years left?

Guitar is a little bit of a struggle finger picking.

Keep going. I'm jealous.

 

 

 

Chances are you're doing better than you give yourself credit for. Do you play for others whom dont candy coat your progress?

[Boarman03]

3 hours ago, Edge said:

Chances are you're doing better than you give yourself credit for. Do you play for others whom dont candy coat your progress?

My progress is not candy coated. I'm finally slowly plinking my way through the easy LDS hymn book by sight reading on the piano. I have 13 easy hymns that I've learned to play and sing too, and passed off by memorizing the piano part.

I bombed my last recital. I choked and the piano keys were much stiffer than the keys on my Baldwin Baby Grand I inherited from my mom, felt wrong. She got her Master's in music.

On the guitar I had spent enough time but gracefully ended after 1 verse before I could crash because of pressure. I prefer pre-recording my songs since I can pick my best one and there is less pressure to get it right the first and only time. Since I started learning during the Covid restrictions, we didn't have live recitals until last spring. Now we will do spring recitals live, but winter will still be recorded.

I have a few favorites, but I play them fairly well only because I memorized them. Now I'm actually to the point of reading quickly enough to play, with errors, Bass and Treble Clefts two to three finger chords, very slowly. I started by learning the piano keys and notes, really ground zero!

For those that understand piano levels, I'm at level 3 working towards level 4 in the lesson books.

I play and sing a mean House of the Rising Sun on the guitar. My attempt of the Edmond Fitzgerald was pretty good as was my El Condor Pasa.  Every thing I do, I do it for you was a train wreck in my opinion. My last Spring recital song was the one I cut way short, Guantanamera in Spanish. I had it down and choked. Love recital.

I'm just now starting fingering instead of strumming. Fingers don't cooperate like I want them to.

I play and sing to maximize difficulty. I sang in choir as a kid over 45 years ago but never learned the notes. Now I know them fairly well. 

There is so much written music that nobody could play 1% of it in a lifetime. 

Now if I skip a day without practicing I don't feel right. Even on vacation! We went on vacation last year to SF and they let me practice a little late at night on the piano at the Beacon Grand, the old Sir Francis Drake. They were so kind to us the 5 days we stayed there. It was the third day I finally asked them because I was having withdrawals. I didn't have my music with me but practiced the songs I had memorized. First serious vacation that was not a family reunion I had ever gone on with all of my kids. Cost me a small fortune but the memories were very priceless.

Piano, guitar, music is wonderful disease.😂

We should probably take this to a private chat. 

 

[Moondizzle]

51 minutes ago, Boarman03 said:

My progress is not candy coated. I'm finally slowly plinking my way through the easy LDS hymn book by sight reading on the piano. I have 13 easy hymns that I've learned to play and sing too, and passed off by memorizing the piano part.

I bombed my last recital. I choked and the piano keys were much stiffer than the keys on my Baldwin Baby Grand I inherited from my mom, felt wrong. She got her Master's in music.

On the guitar I had spent enough time but gracefully ended after 1 verse before I could crash because of pressure. I prefer pre-recording my songs since I can pick my best one and there is less pressure to get it right the first and only time. Since I started learning during the Covid restrictions, we didn't have live recitals until last spring. Now we will do spring recitals live, but winter will still be recorded.

I have a few favorites, but I play them fairly well only because I memorized them. Now I'm actually to the point of reading quickly enough to play, with errors, Bass and Treble Clefts two to three finger chords, very slowly. I started by learning the piano keys and notes, really ground zero!

For those that understand piano levels, I'm at level 3 working towards level 4 in the lesson books.

I play and sing a mean House of the Rising Sun on the guitar. My attempt of the Edmond Fitzgerald was pretty good as was my El Condor Pasa.  Every thing I do, I do it for you was a train wreck in my opinion. My last Spring recital song was the one I cut way short, Guantanamera in Spanish. I had it down and choked. Love recital.

I'm just now starting fingering instead of strumming. Fingers don't cooperate like I want them to.

I play and sing to maximize difficulty. I sang in choir as a kid over 45 years ago but never learned the notes. Now I know them fairly well. 

There is so much written music that nobody could play 1% of it in a lifetime. 

Now if I skip a day without practicing I don't feel right. Even on vacation! We went on vacation last year to SF and they let me practice a little late at night on the piano at the Beacon Grand, the old Sir Francis Drake. They were so kind to us the 5 days we stayed there. It was the third day I finally asked them because I was having withdrawals. I didn't have my music with me but practiced the songs I had memorized. First serious vacation that was not a family reunion I had ever gone on with all of my kids. Cost me a small fortune but the memories were very priceless.

Piano, guitar, music is wonderful disease.😂

We should probably take this to a private chat. 

 

Now learn the organ for your ward! It’s a fun transition from playing the piano. You creep or crawl across the keys while you play those hymns you have learned. Then once you’ve nailed that down add in your feet! It’s those easy bass cleft chords you will be familiar with👍🏻 you got this!

[Boarman03]

On 9/3/2023 at 11:35 PM, Moondizzle said:

Now learn the organ for your ward! It’s a fun transition from playing the piano. You creep or crawl across the keys while you play those hymns you have learned. Then once you’ve nailed that down add in your feet! It’s those easy bass cleft chords you will be familiar with👍🏻 you got this!

I actually own a 1897 Baldwin pump organ that I recorded myself playing the simple hymn version of Oh My Father. The sound makes one feel like he is in a pioneer church service. With the pump organ, your feet are constantly moving to provide the are for the organ pipes while you play. A little challenging.

[Moondizzle]

6 hours ago, Boarman03 said:

I actually own a 1897 Baldwin pump organ that I recorded myself playing the simple hymn version of Oh My Father. The sound makes one feel like he is in a pioneer church service. With the pump organ, your feet are constantly moving to provide the are for the organ pipes while you play. A little challenging.

Amazing!

[Boarman03]

31 minutes ago, Moondizzle said:

Amazing!

I bought it in 2001 for $100. I didn't start learning to play until the middle May of 2021. I've always liked cool old instruments, tools, furniture, cars, etc. They had more craftsmanship.

I have a second, much smaller and less ornate pump organ that came across the plains with the Sirrine family. I bought it from a Sirrine wife's estate.

[andyyy]

On 9/3/2023 at 11:04 AM, Moondizzle said:

I am on the low end. I only did a 2 year apprenticeship under Pete Coleman. So I don’t feel worthy to charge the typical $250 and up that his. Wish I would have stuck with it when I was younger but life called and I had to focus on supporting my family. So now I tune pianos as a side gig that my time allows for it more. Pete told me I could charge up to $175 for my skill level and that I could advertise on my own as it wouldn’t conflict with his customer base. So here I am!

Charge what you’re worth man, digging yourself out of the reputation of being the “cheap guy” is an uphill fight. Plus, out of respect for your old boss/competition, it keeps customers expectations inline with the true market value of a piano tuning. A race to the bottom in pricing does not do you any favors

I see it every day as a contractor, people trying to compete on price and putting themselves out of business and burning out  

thats it for my unsolicited and possibly unwelcome 2 cents lol
 

[Boarman03]

And here I was in September of 2021 fixing the Baldwin baby Grand I inherited from my mom in 2019. I had never repaired one before but I was having a problem with E4, a wire was bent and not allowing the hammer to function correctly. Maybe a pencil ✏️ had fallen in and somebody tried to play?

Nobody in the family wanted it and my kids were taking lessons. My kids have all learned violin from the age of 5 years old. Their mother also plays the violin. Because of their great music teacher and their mother, my kids are very accomplished on the violin. The piano was later for all of the kids($$$$) and the last two also did guitar. We did get a discount for so many lessons. After we were down to just my last child taking lessons, I stepped in and my oldest daughter lives nearby and is taking lessons on the piano, and occasionally her violin to keep it up. On varey rare occasions my wife will take a lesson to try and get herself back going.

It was really awesome the nine years my kids would play together with the teacher as collaborative Pianist in church. Once a year in the summer they would play once for our Ward, and then for hers. As my kids left for college, we combined kids from both families, my youngest is a year younger than her oldest, and they would play. This was the first summer that they did not play, too much going on. It takes a couple of weeks to put together a really good performance, and trust me, these were really, really good.the music teacher would write an arrangement of the existing church hymn to fit the instruments. We've been spoiled! The feeling when they played was so awesome and heavenly that many eyes would start to water up. I really miss my kids.

The youngest will be applying for a mission in January. We'll see where they want to send him. Hopefully a Spanish speaking, but who knows where the Prophet and upper leaders will feel needs him. He's my only boy and my daughters contemplated going, my third daughter may choose to go yet, but the older two decided not to. 

I know that my kids learning to play violin and piano was the best investment I've made, and now it's my turn, before I kick the bucket. Much harder after 60! I'm the teacher's oldest student and it's very humbling to be the old fart playing the simpler songs at or in the recitals. A lot of pressure twice a year. I definitely would rather give a speech in front of a large auditorium of people. I'm way out of my comfort zone. But by now everyone knows I'm just a beginner. Motivates me to try much harder to be much better, and to learn much faster 

Good luck with your business. I've been self employed all of my life. 

I was a little lower than most but gave the best service and work. As I got extremely busy, I raised my prices until I stayed busy but still had a little excess capacity. I still get people wanting me to do their work and willing to wait until it fits my schedule.

You do what you feel you need to do to make it work for you. Check on others by calling for a tuning to see what they are really charging. Repairing pianos may bring in more as well, if you enjoy that.

Life goes by very quickly, so try to enjoy what you do.

The only things we can take with us when we pass to the other side are our knowledge and experiences, so always go for the best of both!

[Moondizzle]

8 hours ago, Boarman03 said:

And here I was in September of 2021 fixing the Baldwin baby Grand I inherited from my mom in 2019. I had never repaired one before but I was having a problem with E4, a wire was bent and not allowing the hammer to function correctly. Maybe a pencil ✏️ had fallen in and somebody tried to play?

Nobody in the family wanted it and my kids were taking lessons. My kids have all learned violin from the age of 5 years old. Their mother also plays the violin. Because of their great music teacher and their mother, my kids are very accomplished on the violin. The piano was later for all of the kids($$$$) and the last two also did guitar. We did get a discount for so many lessons. After we were down to just my last child taking lessons, I stepped in and my oldest daughter lives nearby and is taking lessons on the piano, and occasionally her violin to keep it up. On varey rare occasions my wife will take a lesson to try and get herself back going.

It was really awesome the nine years my kids would play together with the teacher as collaborative Pianist in church. Once a year in the summer they would play once for our Ward, and then for hers. As my kids left for college, we combined kids from both families, my youngest is a year younger than her oldest, and they would play. This was the first summer that they did not play, too much going on. It takes a couple of weeks to put together a really good performance, and trust me, these were really, really good.the music teacher would write an arrangement of the existing church hymn to fit the instruments. We've been spoiled! The feeling when they played was so awesome and heavenly that many eyes would start to water up. I really miss my kids.

The youngest will be applying for a mission in January. We'll see where they want to send him. Hopefully a Spanish speaking, but who knows where the Prophet and upper leaders will feel needs him. He's my only boy and my daughters contemplated going, my third daughter may choose to go yet, but the older two decided not to. 

I know that my kids learning to play violin and piano was the best investment I've made, and now it's my turn, before I kick the bucket. Much harder after 60! I'm the teacher's oldest student and it's very humbling to be the old fart playing the simpler songs at or in the recitals. A lot of pressure twice a year. I definitely would rather give a speech in front of a large auditorium of people. I'm way out of my comfort zone. But by now everyone knows I'm just a beginner. Motivates me to try much harder to be much better, and to learn much faster 

Good luck with your business. I've been self employed all of my life. 

I was a little lower than most but gave the best service and work. As I got extremely busy, I raised my prices until I stayed busy but still had a little excess capacity. I still get people wanting me to do their work and willing to wait until it fits my schedule.

You do what you feel you need to do to make it work for you. Check on others by calling for a tuning to see what they are really charging. Repairing pianos may bring in more as well, if you enjoy that.

Life goes by very quickly, so try to enjoy what you do.

The only things we can take with us when we pass to the other side are our knowledge and experiences, so always go for the best of both!

Thank you for all the advise! I know it comes from a real place of caring. As for repairs I’m not insured for that nor did I reach that level in my apprenticeship. I can replace a sting if I break one, that’s about it. That is an intimidating beast! Tuning is just something my mom got me into when I had no direction in life 😂 it’s a good side gig that I enjoy. All my kids play and are in the Arizona study program. With whatever path they take in life be it serve a mission or just play for the ward or themselves I hope they remember the safe place music takes them to. My mother has her masters in music and has taught them since they could start, so I hope they cherish those memories with their grandma.