Player Piano Care

     I have been working in Chicago all week and have had the priviledge of working on several great player pianos.  One reminded me of the upright pumper in "The Music Man", one of my favorite musicals.  When I bought another tuners business in 2006 I acquired about 200 player customers.  I don't think I have that many any more as every customer eventually comes to a point where the player needs to be rebuilt and some choose to remove the player mechanism or just toss the whole piano. 
     Those paper rolls cantain some great music that is often lost.  If the choice is throwing away the whole piano or just the player machine it is better to keep the piano as some of these instruments are great pianos that have been neglected because of the player machine making the piano inaccessible for the average tuner.  I have been forced to get out of the player rebuilding business because the time working on a player impacted my availability to me piano customers too much. 
     For a time these players were great to use for families and friends to gather around and sing along or just have the fun of making great music with your feet.  I also worked on a grand piano that is a player this week.  You need a big room for a grand and an even bigger room for a grand player as they often are very loud.  Just like a grand piano can have a much richer sound than a smaller piano a grand player can have a much greater sound than a smaller player.
     I guess as I get older I likie to hold on to older things and knowing that great player pianos are getting to be a thing of the past makes me a little sad.  If you have a player in the chicago or south Florida area and are thinking about getting rid of it I hope you will call me first or find me through my web site at renshawmusic.com.

Player Piano care

     When I expanded my business by buying another tuning business I bought about 200 player piano customers.  I do not rebuild players but have the tooling and ability to maintain them.  A player piano is really two machines.  Many tuners when called by a player customer for a tuning will not tune them because you often have to take things apart in the player machine to get to the tuning pins and dod the tuning.  Players are fragile machines and it is very easy to damage something in the process of assembling or re-assembling these machines. When I do get a player that needs to be rebuilt I refer it to another specialist that does these rebuilds for me.
     Players work on suction rather than air pressure.  A player rypically developes leaks and begins to become harder to pump if it is a pumper and just run slower with notes of the piece not sounding.  Because it is not one leak but many in the heart of the mechanism there is no easy or cheap fix. Customers at this crossroad have to decide if they really want the player or just settle for the piano.  The player part can be removed and then you just have a piano without the player machine in the way of the tuning process and this is a service I provide more and more these days.
     The old mechanical players with the paper rolls are great fun and those that love them will spend the money to care for these great instruments.  I am seeing fewer player customers each year, however.  I get calls frequently from those wanting to sell a player and sometimes I can find these instruments a new home and sometimes I can't.  I do enjoy working on them and hope this part of my business does not someday cease to exist.

Management in a small business

     I have been in business for some time now and I still use only indipendent contractors, but I am still a manager.  Even if you are still a one man show most businesses have to do some purchasing, marketing , and sales.  These tasks actually are much the same as someone who does sales for instance for a big company.  I still have to get new customers as does the sales person selling to customers whose orders have a few more zeros than mine.
     As my business grew there came a point when I needed others to help me and then I like it or not became a manager.  I actually found that I liked the management tasks but  if I could not hire someone to do sales or marketing the job fell to me if the company was to grow.  It is actually much easier to learn these tasks today with all the free education offered on the internet and through organizations like SCORE or joining local chambers of commerce.  I have found both of these organizations to offer great help for free or close to free.
     My oldest son will be a senior next year in college majoring in business and I have suggested to him that if he does not find a job right away he might consider starting up a small business.  My thought to him was if you bury yourself in a small part of a large company you will never learn about all the things that make a comapny big or small work like sales or marketing to name a few.  His reaction was not positive or negative but I said to him even if you made a profit of the minimum wage he would learn much more than if he had worked at McDonalds and even if the business folded he would be young and the experience would help him find a better job.
     Someday I hope to be big enough to hire an accountant for instance but for now the job remains mine.

Down time

     I am spending some time off at the Joni and Friends family retreat as a volunteer.  Everyone needs some time off and I am spending some vacation time with a purpose.  Families come to Marinatha Bible and Conference Center that have a disabled family member and a volunteer like me helps care for the disabled person giving the families a respite from the 24/7 care of the disabled person. 
     There are all sorts of disabilities here and I have served at this camp for 11 summers now. These week long camps receive families in great stress often.  The care givers get a chance to connect with other families facing the same challenges and it is often a healing time for a family that might otherwise not stay together as the divorce rate for a family with a disabled child is in the 80% range.
     Another statistic that really grabbed my attention this week was the 90% of downs syndrome babies that are currently aborted.  Down syndrome is easily tested for these days and our culture seems to regard these persons as disposable.  I have served as a buddy to downs syndrome children here and I find this to be a great tradgedy.
     I more often have served adults but the point of this camp is to serve the whole family no matter what disability is present.  A vacation where you travel and see another culture or just relax in a beautiful perhaps tropical setting is a good thing, but I find my batteries recharged by this kind of ministry even more.  The volunteers work hard here but I really get away from the business here and return with a new energy.

Small business driving the ecomomy

     I am not an economist but it seems to me that small business is important to the ecomomy.  A small business can often offer goods and services cheaper than a big company and so when a consumer needs something and needs the best price for the good or service the small business will usually get the job.  I have sons in college soon to enter the job market and they might get a job at a big company but it is more likely that they will need to get some experience at a  smaller company before becoming CEO of a big one.
     I kind of hope they will consider starting a small business.  If a small business fails when you are young there is much to be learned and plenty of time to move on with a career with some practical knowledge of how a business works.  With a big company if you lose your job when you are older like my dad did when the Phantom jet program ended and he was laid off at McDonald Aircraft it is much harder to find a job that continues to advance your career.
     One of the major enemies of small business today is the banking industry.  If you have lots of money they are willing to make loans but if not you have to look elsewhere.  Penalty fees are easier money. 
     This week and the next I am volunteering at the Joni and Friends family retreat.  I have been doing this for many. years now and being in business for myself allows me this flexibility.  It is a wonderful ministry to families effected by disability and I am motivated to work in a small business in order for this ministry to be possible.  Large corporations need workers too and some enjoy climbing the corporate ladder but I prefer to build a new ladder.

Business today: unnecessary meanness

     Everyone in business has relationships with a variety of others such as suppliers, accountants, tax advisors, employees, bankers, and competitors.  The most important persons in any businessmans life is the customer.  When I was driving a limousine for a living one time at a meeting one of the drivers in jest suggested the job would be much better if we got rid of the customers.  He suggested dispatch could just send us from place to place and we could give the appropriote radio code when we arrived and then dispatch us to the next location without any customers in the car.  At the end of the shift we would just return to base and then go home.  It was a brief interlude in an otherwise serious business meeting.
     I enjoy my customers very much and would not think of doing less than my best while in the customers living room caring for a piano.  There are many challenges to running a business especially when the business is small.  I have independent contractors helping me and they do a great job.  I like to think that they think the same way about the customers of mine they serve. 
     I am a customer too of my banker, my accountant, my suppliers and a number of others.  I wish I could say Renshaw Music was important to these folks but there is a lot of unnecessary meanness in the marketplace today.  At one time a banker was the friend of small business.  At a bank today everyone is outwardly friendly but banks make a significant percentage of their income from penalty fees.  They smile as they tell you the $30 fee was not a bank error.  It of course was not an error but the funds are taken on purpose. 
     The battle is not often with providing good service to the customer but with protecting company funds.  I find I need bankers, suppliers, accountants and others to support my business but finding professionals in these fields that really want to help my business succeed is a great challenge.

Piano Choices; To rebuild or throw it away

     It is hard to think of a piano as something to throw away.  Enough neglect, however, can relagate a very fine piano to the dumpster.  There were once many fine American ;iano brands such as Baldwin,Mason and Hamlin, Chickering and many others.  It is true today however that the last American brand standing is Steinway.  A Steinway is a very fine piano but a medium sized grand can cost up to $100,000.  There are Asian pianos that have American sounding names designed to fool the public and the Asian makers have indeed gotten better in recent years.
     As a piano ages natural wear occurs on all the moving parts but more so in the middle of the piano that gets more use than the top and bottom.  A tuner can replace worn parts as needed but the touch becomes very uneven even with good regulation.  Parts can eventually fail causing one note to cease to play.  A rebuild is when you replace all the moving parts in the action and also the strings,tuning pins and pin block as well as refinishing the body.  When you do this you can even do things like repair cracks in the soundboard and refinish the soundboard and replace any decals on the instrument.  A good rebuild on one of these fine pianos can cost $20,000.
     Pianos are neglected for many reasons.  Often the decision maker does not realise what a rebuild is and what can be done to one of these instruments.  I have seen rebuild Baldwins that look just like they came out of the factory.  If a piano is 100 years old and I see many still functioning at that age if they have received even minimal care, with a rebuild one can expect  many years again of great service from one of these pianos.  Which then is cheaper, the new Steinway or the rebuilt Baldwin?
     I have put forth this argument many times and sometimes there is agreement but the funds are just not there and I understand that.  I also know that if a piano is not used the perception can become that it is not fixable.  I do hate seeing one of these fine instruments on the road to the dumpster and if you have influence in the displsition of one of these instruments I hope you will consider these facts.

Tuning or caring for the piano

     I have been in Chicago now for a week working with some customers I have known for many years and meeting some new families.  I did enjoy teaching but this job does have some very unique rewards.  One day I am in a suburban home and the next in a high rise with a beautiful view of Lake Michigan.  The pianos I work on run the gammit too from beautiful grand pianos at home in a concert hall or one of those luxury condos on the lakefront or a more humble instrument in a modest home.
     Tuning is a beginning of the job.  Piano care involves much more.  With many customers the piano is not only an instrument but a piece of furniture.  You don't put in a case and then into a closet like a trumpet when not in use.  Pianos are made mostly of wood  snd so changes in humidity can have a devistating effect on a piano placed in a bad place in a room.  The rule of thumb for piano placement is never on an outside wall or next to a direct heat source.  I sell a great line of polishes and can offer on my web site beautiful woven coverings  for a piano top that can protect a finish from the dreaded potted plant that have left rings on some very fine pianos. 
     For some of the families that I serve the piano is a new addition to the family and the hope is that the children taking piano lessons will learn to play well forever enriching their lives and perhaps creating a family tradition of fine players.  The piano is a complex machine and if I do my job well the customer will develop confidence in my work and look to me for advise about piano care and perhaps direction about an upgrade to a better instrument when the player  or players have that need.
     Piano care can be expensive, however and if the choice is make a house payment or tune the piano a piano can sometimes get neglected even when everyone understands the need for the care.  I once had a customer with a player piano which the husband loved and wanted to press ahead with an overhaul until the wife said in my presence " it's the piano or me".  I don't know if that piano is still around but differing views about  spending money on a piano and just the finantial realities of the household can effect piano care.
     There are many fine tuners offering tuning and technical services but I think another very important part of my task is to listen carefully to my customers and provide education about the machine and how it works and then respond to the level of care desired by the customer.