Charging for Pitch Raises

[Clyde Hollinger]

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William,

Your first question is about concert tunings, and your second one is
about regular clients, so I am answering them that way.

I start my response with this question--  What is meant by a stable
tuning?  It could mean at least two things.  (1) Every note will stay
exactly where I put it while tuning.  (2)  When the piano is being
played, the tuning will not change.

Now to my hunch (and that's all it is) on your question 1:  A change of
4 cents in the treble of a piano with normal tuning stability may cause
surrounding notes to change somewhat during the process of tuning, but I
see no reason why, when you are finished, further change will occur
during the process of playing, if your tuning technique is up to par.

Another question comes to mind:  I have four Steinway tunings recorded
on RCT.  Every tuning shows adding between 46 and 56 cents to C8.  Am I
really to believe that a 4-cent difference will be heard by anyone in
the audience, or even by the pianist, given that various technicians
will use various amounts of stretch?  (I'm not talking about unisons
now.)  I doubt it.  So we have a non-standard target to start with.

Question 2:  I charge extra any time I need to go over the piano more
than once.  For more discriminating pianists the cents deviation from
standard may be lower than others.  For clients who have the piano tuned
annually, this change is rarely more than about 7 cents, so I do a
one-pass tuning.  Beyond that, I usually make decisions on a
case-by-case basis.

I am sure we are not all going to agree on this issue.  If I admit to
sometimes doing a one-time pass on an old beater that was up to 27 cents
flat, as I did yesterday (I left it 5c flat), some will think I don't
deserve to be called a piano technician.  To be certain, I wasn't very
happy about doing that, but we've got to remember that it's the client's
piano, and it's the client's money, so the client is the boss.  But this
is one I won't be contacting about future service.  :-)

Regards,
Clyde Hollinger, RPT
Lititz, PA, USA

"William R. Monroe" wrote:

> I was reading an old essay (PTJ August '90) by Rick Baldassin
> regarding Piano Tuning Stability.  Within that article, Rick writes
> about tuning for a concert and remarks that after a rehearsal, the
> treble was really out.  'Why?  The treble notes were too far out of
> tune to create a stable tuning in one pass on the tuning.'  He stated
> that when he tuned the instrument prior to the rehearsal, the 6th and
> 7th octaves were flat, 'maybe as much as four cents.' So, in a
> nutshell, if your piano is four cents flat, your tuning will not be
> stable (for a concert level tuning). My questions: 1.) Really?  Is
> four cents flat too much to get a stable concert tuning? 2.) For our
> regular clients, when do we begin charging for a pitch raise, 5 cents,
> 10 cents, 20 cents?  I realize that neither all clients, nor their
> instruments will require this level tuning, but where do we draw the
> line and say we must raise pitch to get a stable tuning? I am very
> interested to hear as many opinions on this one as possible. Thank
> you, William R. Monroe
> PTG Associate
> Salt Lake City, UT

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