Arrived at a new client's house to find a relatively new Yamaha P22. Before I even touched the piano, the client told me, "This piano goes out of tune 2 months after it's tuned. I don't know if it's the piano, or the tuner. That's why I tried you, to see if it would stay in tune longer with a different tuner." So I played a chromatic scale upward from middle C, and one octave up, at C5 the unison was WAY out. F5, F#5 also WAY out, but everything else slightly out of tune to a normal degree. So I started my pitch raise, (it was at 437) and when I got to C5, I was surprised to find that one of the strings was 35 cents sharp. Same with F5, and F#5. I pondered this throughout the tuning as to how or why this could happen. Flat, I could understand, but sharp? Anyway, I gave her my bill, took her check, and as always, I said, "I'll put a card in the bench. If you need to find me, you'll know where to look." And when I opened the bench, I had to laugh inwardly, at least. I knew how those unisons came to be so out of tune: in the bench was a gooseneck tuning lever. Now, I don't suspect she tuned the whole piano for the overall tuning, though degraded through time, was far too good. I think a unison or two, perhaps at C5, F5, or F#5 went slightly out and she tried to fix'em. Another interesting day, and another puzzler solved. Tom Sivak
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