Bad Pianos Are Good Pianos

[Ron Nossaman]

>Last Thursday I had two tuning appointments. I serviced a BAD 100 year old
>Kimball grand. The lady wanted it tuned, but it also needed keys and dampers
>fixed just so that I could tune the darn thing. Four and a half hours later
>it was tuned. Then I went to tune a NEW Baldwin Hamilton. Flat, had to align
>many hammers because they were not hitting the strings, some hammers loose
>from shanks, keys not level, etc. Three hours later tuned. I made $380 that
>day.
>
>Yesterday I had two tuning appointments. I had tuned both within the last
>year (newer Yamaha grand and an as-good-as-it-gets Kimball grand). Both
>within 4 cents of A440. Two pass tunings. Four and a half hours later
>(drive, tune, drive, tune, etc.) I had $150.
>
>I take back everything I have said about junk pianos. I LOVE THEM!!!!
>
>Terry Farrell


Let's see here. Two tunings each day at $75 each. One day used up 4.5 hours
for those tunings, at $150. The other day used 7.5 hours for $380, so you
either take two hours for tuning and get $75 per hour for repairs (which
doesn't equate, since you make half wages tuning), or you drove a whole lot
farther tuning the better pianos than you did patching the junque. You'd
have made the money in about the same time tuning 5 decent pianos if they
were located closer together, so... You don't really love the junk, you
just don't like wasting your day driving between pianos - decent or
otherwise. Given the choice, I'd rather leave five reasonably well tuned
decent pianos behind me making me look good than two patched up beaters
waiting for me to get out of sight so they could throw another part. And
somehow, they always do seem to throw another part. Always something
totally unrelated to what you worked on. "Right after you left..." six
months ago.
 
We just all need more people close by with good pianos. Some to tune, some
to repair, and some to resomethingorother when they pass into the junque zone.

Ron N