Pitch

[Z! Reinhardt]

Tin Ears and Just Plain Noise ...

Permit me to be blunt here.  I have no sympathy for parents who assume that
"anything's good enough for the little house pianist" when the pianist is in
school when I come to service the piano.  For every parent who makes that
assumption, I hear from someone else's "little house pianist" that they are
tired of their pianos sounding "different" from their teacher's.  The
dreadfully out-of-tune piano gets a pitch raise and then some, at the
parents' expense, with virtually no room for negotiation.  Of course I'm
more than happy to explain to them the necessity for having a piano at pitch
to make music study a meaningful experience for all involved.  (Nobody has
tried to stiff me yet.)

There's always the question of whether or not the piano will ever be used to
accompany other instruments.  Well, maybe the parents don't play and don't
have friends who will pull out their instruments and play while visiting
them, but the little house pianist may have just such buddies who should be
encouraged to come over and play music.

[Ah, yes ... fond memories of those spontaneous jam sessions in my parents'
living room when my friends brought over guitars in the late '60s ... how we
worked at transcribing, or at least figuring out the chord changes to
selected songs, the likes of which no teacher would ever want to hear played
in her studio, but were fun to play everywhere else but.]

Z! Reinhardt  RPT
Ann Arbor  MI
diskladame@provide.net

----- Original Message -----
From: "Joseph Garrett" <joegarrett@earthlink.net>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2002 7:43 PM
Subject: Pitch


All,
A comment was made, "I can see no justification for raising the pitch....."
I will give ONE very strong reason: EAR TRAINING. If some continue to leave
pianos "where they are", etc, for little Johnny to practice on, we will
never get rid of the horrible phenomenon of "Tin Ears". Please consider
this. Music is to be loved, enjoyed and to ease our day to day stresses.
IMHO any piano that is out of tune or not at proper pitch does none of that.
Respectfully,
Joe Garrett, RPT, (Oregon)