stability of pitch raises

[Ron Nossaman]

An observation or two and a question, if I may.

You folks that do pitch corrections and multiple tunings on pianos that are
two cents off 440 must live in a more perfect world than I. The bulk of my
"concert" work is university and church programs, and special events where
a piano is hauled through swamp and desert to be tuned in climate
conditions vastly different than those from which it came - usually during
the sound check.

The church and university venues aren't willing to pay the price to do
ANYTHING right, and I'm not inclined to work for free, so they get my best
shot, one pass. I did one of these last week at a university. They wanted
their S&S D and the 7' Kawai tuned together for an upcoming program (last
tuned in February or March). They didn't want to pay any more than a
standard price for each though, since they are already grumbling that I had
raised their discounted price $3 each over last year. We have at least part
of this discussion every year. What they got was just what they were
willing to pay for - a single pass tuning on each piano individually, just
like every other time they needed the pianos tuned together, and I presume
everything went as smoothly as they have reported every other time that it
had. Sure, I could have done a better job doing multiple passes and
comparing the pianos note for note and compromising as necessary to get
them as close as I could. I just wasn't willing to give away the minimum
two tunings worth of time it would have taken to do that. Being a purist is
a fine and noble thing, but so is being able to eat regularly.

Now the question, especially for those that prorate pitch raise prices with
the amount of pitch change. How do you determine what the pitch of the
piano is for these computations? This time of year (in pianos tuned a year
ago), I often find A nearly dead on 440, while the low tenor is 16 cents
sharp, and the killer octave slightly flat. According to the A measurement,
it's on pitch and should be an easy tuning. 

Ron N