Piano 'detuning'

[bases-loaded@juno.com]

Chris -

Sorry, haven't heard of THAT one!  However, I DO have a customer that
called for her first tuning appointment a few years back with great
reluctance.  It appears her children's piano teacher was highly
recommending they have their piano tuned after having stopped by to see
if the kid's complaints were true.  The customer was obviously torn,
because she had grown up "in a musical family" and her father and her
uncle always insisted that pianos REALLY don't need to be tuned, that it
was a myth started by piano tuners to make money off the unsuspecting!

Education is a wonderful thing.  Perhaps recommend a book from her public
library that might possibly open her eyes (and ears) a teeny weeny bit.  

Good luck!

Mark Potter
bases-loaded@juno.com

On Tue, 6 Jul 1999 03:01:48 EDT ChrisRis@AOL.COM writes:
> Greetings,
> 
> I have a dingbat of a customer with a Steinway upright from the 
> teens who 
> claims to be a 'wizard of interpretation' and to play the 'tone' of 
> the 
> piano, 'unlike most professionals'.  She hasn't tuned her piano in 
> 12 years 
> and the action was so frozen and out of regulation that it was 
> impossible.  
> Did the usual, file the hammers, adjust let off and blow, protek the 
> action, 
> teflon the butt leathers, voila, plays great.  Unfortuneatley, it's 
> no longer 
> the piano she loved.  It seems it has lost it's unique voice that 
> she 
> preferred over any other piano she has heard, the best included.
> 
> She mentioned today that Liszt 'preferred' his pianos out of tune - 
> found 
> them more inspiring - and it brought to mind a story I heard 30 
> years ago 
> about an itinerant 'toner' that followed along behind the itinerant 
> tuner.  
> She - that's how the story goes - would slightly detune 1 string of 
> a unison, 
> restoring the charm and strength of voice of the instrument that 
> somehow was 
> lost in the tuning!
> 
> Has anyone EVER heard of this???  I'm actually thinking of trying it 
> on her; 
> she's crazy enough to love it!!!
> 
> Christopher Ris
> 
> PS  About 6 months ago I heard a snippet of a piano piece that was 
> prepared 
> like this, but out of tune enough the have that 'honky tonk' sound.
> 
> 
> 
> I'm