P22/gooseneck mini-puzzler w/answer

[Clyde Hollinger]

Tom,

After I pitchraised and tuned a guy's pitifully out-of-tune spinet, he called me
a week later to say that several notes really sounded off.  When I arrived to
check it out I asked him if he had tried to touch up my tuning, since I knew he
had a tuning hammer.  He said, "No!  You believe me, don't you?!"  He seemed to
be itching for an argument, so I just said, "If you say so."  No, I didn't
believe him.

Shortly thereafter he volunteered, "I only worked on one or two."  There you go;
the truth was out.  I will never go back, mainly because he was combative.  That
was years ago, and  thankfully he has never called me again.

Clyde

Tvak@AOL.COM wrote:

> 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