Regarding questions 2 and 3- I have, on occasion, done extra work at no charge on a customer who obviously was financially strapped. But when one is simply unwilling to be responsible with paying for service rendered, I would have no problem suggesting they use another technician. It isn't being "unfair" at all, rather realizing that the technician is not responsible for the presenting problem, and therefore if the client wants the technician to do what s/he is trained to do, then compensation is justified. 3. This last weekend I tuned a 9' Baldwin for a concert, spent more than three hours at it, then asked the local PTG president if he'd come and critique it for a free lunch. Later in the afternoon I had another tuning, a Wurlitzer which wasn't much of an instrument. I found that after the stress of that concert tuning, and three hours at the local PTG meeting, I could hardly do a good tuning. In fact I almost told the client that I simply was not able to do an excellent tuning at that moment. However, the instrument was of such poor quality that a few cents here-or-there wouldn't make much differenct. However, another tuner might listen to the tuning and conclude that I was incompetent. I have had my tunings critiqued numerous times by nationally known technicians and have been informed that I worry too much about tiny inconsistencies. There are jerks and quacks in every trade, of course, but I think that ours, given the clumsy means we have to make the finest of adjustments nearly two hundred times in each tuning, is one that can be affected greatly by our physical and emotional state. I might do a wonderful tuning one day, and the next find that same edge hard to duplicate. 40 cents is an inordinate amount of drop in a year. On the other hand, could the strings still be stretching? That, of course can't be determined immediately, only after a good tuning is done and some time has elapsed to re-check the work. My rule of thumb in considering the work of other tuners is to ask, "If I had erred a similar amount, what would I like another technician to do if he or she had to follow me?" I guess I am simply keenly aware of my fallibility. Leslie Bartlett On Tue, 11 Feb 1997 07:56:17 -0500 james allen bickerton <jbickerton@abraxis.com> writes: >While tuning a Kimball Grand for a first-time customer, I immediately >realized that the piano was on average about 40 cents flat. The piano >was manufactured in 1994, and the owner claimed that the piano had >been >tuned within the last 12 months. The owner also expressed >dissatisfaction with her previous technician, claiming that the tech, >while tuning her piano, had removed the fallboard, and while in the >process, had broken the slow-fall mechanism on the fallboard. I have >several questions: > 1. How difficult is it to repair the fallboard? > 2. When confronted with a piano requiring a pitch raise, and the >owner refuses to pay charges beyond a standard tuning fee, do you (a) >refuse to do the work, (b) tune the piano at current pitch (c) spend >the extra time and do the job right for the standard fee? > 3. How does one handle customers when they speak ill of other piano >techs, especially when it is obvious that the previous work was >performed poorly? > > JIM >
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