Tuning in an Acoustically-Challenged Venue

[Arnold]

I am not lucky enough to get to tune in  concert venues, so my
acoustic challenges come mostly from tuning in the music store.  Such
things as people playing on electronic keyboards, or electric guitars
with fuzz tone in effect, or having them demonstrated, or
 people wanting to play in the exact key in which I am tuning are the
usual for me.

	But, by far,  the most challenging venue I have ever attempted to
tune a piano was in 1989, when I was called to a person's house to tune
an acrosonic from the early 50's.  Not only was this piano almost a whole
step flat, but she had (no exaggeration) 60 birds of all kinds in that
house.  The majority were either in the room where the piano was located,
or in the next room, and, I
think, they were all within ear shot of me.  I almost didn't do the job,
but I decided that, if I had tuned in a music store, I could do this.
But this was very different; these bird chirpings and whistlings and
screamings weren't musical , they were just plain noise.  I did tune the
piano to pitch, no strings broke, and it took a little over two hours.
But maybe 15 or 20 minutes before I finished, one of those birds got
tired of my being there and set up with one of the loudest piercing
whistling screamings I think I have ever heard; it would do this every 3
or 4 minutes.  I would have moved the piano, but quite honestly, there
was nowhere to move it that there weren't birds.  I told the owner that,
whatever she did, not to tell a tuner about these birds before he came;
otherwise, nobody would ever come.  Hmm, I wonder why I have never called
her back to tune that piano again.  I do wonder what happened to it.  I
think I did a pretty good job considering the environment.

Arnold Schmidt