A few of those old guys never learned anything they weren't originally taught, and would tell you so as often and loudly as possible. They were Depression kids and some never shook the mind set. Make do, do without, use it up, think cheap, play it safe, slide it by. More recently, the tune it low guys seem to be the cut-rate tuners, whether they are working for music stores or not. They got the tuning job because they quoted the $35 price on the phone, the customer fully intends to hold them to that price, and they aren't about to do any extra work for the money since they're already working so cheap. They would often use the low tuning price as a loss leader though, selling hundreds of bridle strap and hammer filing jobs (moto tool) as income enhancers. Many times when I was new to the business, I'd find myself looking at a very dead old beater with an action so worn out it wouldn't work well enough for me to try to tune it. It's a half semitone flat, the bass bridge is hanging on the strings like a cat on a screen door, entirely free of the soundboard. The customer is complaining that my price was so much higher than that other guy's (and not at all high at that), and I'm staring at a new set of bridle straps, a set of severely filed hammers (into the moldings through the last octave), and very often a new set of un-trimmed keytops. The low pitch was just one of the symptoms of the overall service philosophy, which the customer rarely noticed anyway. They were more upset that I didn't tune the piano that the last guy rebuilt at such great expense over that much more reasonable than mine tuning price. A whole lot of the problems encountered in this business seem to consist of trying to uneducate the customers of what the last guy told and sold them. Ron N
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