just a moment of your time

[Phil Bondi]

..first let me say Happy New Year to my colleagues and I hope to meet
some of you this year at various PTG functions around the country..

..and to comment on Richard Galasini's comment earlier about when the
only time a tech is mentioned is when there's a problem with the
piano..how true!..I found that to be true earlier this week when a
Wurlitzer C-143 was 'donated' to a club here to be used for a show going
on this week..on Tuesday I was "worthless" because the piano was
"terrible"..but on Thursday, after the C-143 was replaced with a C-173,
I was "magnificent".."I can't believe it's a Wurlitzer".. hmm!

and one more thing..to Richard Galasini yet again..earlier this week I
put the final tuning on a Cunningham Player Upright that was at one time
over 300 cents flat..A4 was "definitely" F#4 when I first started to
bring this beast up to pitch..it was mentioned here on this list that I
NOT do 3-4 tunings on it to bring it to pitch..rather just pull it up
and fine tune it like I would normally with a pitch-correction..well,
I'm glad I disagreed with ALL of you because what I have is a piano that
is stable at 440 and a customer that is gushing with happiness..as a
matter of fact, this customer told me this week that he called 2 other
techs in the area about what I had told him about first, how flat his
piano was, and second, how I was going to get it back to pitch and have
it maintain pitch..both techs told him that they would NOT touch the
job, and that I was "wasting his money" by 'attempting' to bring it up
to pitch.....well folks, it's there..the player sounds great..this
customer has a large library of rolls to choose from..it's nice to see
that in this day and age...it's also nice to have a customer that is
THAT grateful for my efforts..and it is also gratifying to know that my
'gut feeling' on this one was correct..no I'm not saying  "I TOLD YOU
SO" to my peers..rather I am saying thanks for the input that I received
on this one months ago..if you remember, I was afraid that bringing it
up to pitch all at once would cause something like the plate or the
soundboard to give way from all the added tension..I was told that those
scenarios shouldn't happen and that I should just "go for it"..i'm glad
I didn't and listen to my gut and did it my way..both the customer and
the technician are better off for it!

Phil