What to Tell Owner About Her BAD Piano

David M. Porritt dm.porritt@verizon.net
Thu, 16 Aug 2001 10:13:10 -0500


Terry:

You'll not get very far with the piano owner.  Your best hope is that the "advanced pianist" will have played Story & Irk pianos before and will have her expectations set accordingly.

dave

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 8/15/01 at 6:50 PM Farrell wrote:

>I tune many older, low quality pianos that have a lot of noise, false
>beats,
>etc. in them. Put a good tuning on 'em and they still sound quite a bit
>less
>than stellar. I tuned a 1974 Sorry & Cluck console today. One of the worst
>I
>have met in terms of noise (in that you cannot get a clean unison), and
>false beats (top two octaves are trashed). It was 30 cents flat in bass and
>up to 100 cents flat in high-treble. Raised pitch, & tuned. Then the lady
>tells me that in a week or so some friend of hers is coming to visit. This
>lady is reported to be a very advanced pianist. The guest will be playing
>the piano - that is why the once-every-20-years tuning.
>
>Now surely anyone that is a good pianist will sit down to play this thing
>for about a minute, and then say to the owner "Eleanor, I thought you said
>you just had this piano tuned?" Like, I'm tuning this thing and thinking
>that this lady will call me in two weeks and want me to "tune it right this
>time". I know it is best to not say anything about the lousy pianos to
>owners - and I don't. But, boy, in a case like this I really want to tell
>her to not expect much - her piano sounds better - but it still sounds
>like......well, you know. Any suggestions?
>
>IT'S NOT MY FAULT YOU HAVE A BAD PIANO, LADY!
>
>Terry Farrell


_____________________________
David M. Porritt
dporritt@mail.smu.edu
Meadows School of the Arts
Southern Methodist University
Dallas, TX 75275
_____________________________



This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC