stumped

[Willem Blees]

Les



I know you are a very compassionate guy, but sometimes that gets in the way of making a living. You should not take it personally when you evaluate an instrument. I agree with Pat's assessment. Don't be responsible for the mistakes of the customer.  Just tell them what the problems are, and what it is going to take to make the piano playable. Let them worry about the money. If they want to spend it, fine.  If not, it's their problem, not yours. Also tell them that even after the repairs have been made, that they still have a POS. I know this is hard, and you feel sorry for them for being ripped off. But again, that's not what you are getting paid for. 


Willem (Wim) Blees, RPT
Piano Tuner/Technician
Honolulu, HI
Author of 
The Business of Piano Tuning
available from Potter Press
www.pianotuning.com


-----Original Message-----
From: Leslie Bartlett <l-bartlett at sbcglobal.net>
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Sent: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 6:17 pm
Subject: stumped



I tuned (no I really didn't) for "Dennis" today- and old Howard (sn 220***- for which I didn't find a reasonable match in Pierce's). The retired engineer had married a Russian lady, young enough to be his daughter- and nicely I made that mistake.  Bass strings were dead, multiple bridge cracks, the strings painted gold, several replaced, about six pins in the center where a tiny amount of counterclockwise pressure sent the string a half or whole tone flat. They also popped loudly when they let loose- like Baldwin, only it was virtually no useful tension on the pin.  There were a couple pins up around note 80 which were the same way.  Hammer 88 was within 1mm of having the  felt open up at the bottom of the grooves on the flat-topped hammers.  Problem was, the man had bought this as a birthday present for this wife who is a HIGH level concert player while she was out of the country.     I was there over four hours, so mad that they guy had gotten screwed (I believe the damage was done before prior owner sold it to him- she wasn't a player, so bought it mostly as furniture), and that I couldn't make a decent tuning.  The Russian asked if I had ever tuned a piano like this before……………………….       I pulled the action and went through everything with him, and he seemed more than satisfied that little if anything could be done- but the wife- I think she wanted me dead.  

When and HOW does one just give up on a POS when nothing works?  This really bothered me.  I've tuned Howards before and hated them, but got them tuned.  Nothing rendered decently, nothing stayed stable for me.  I've never had anything quite like this before, and hope I never do again.

They can't afford another piano, though their house was probably valued at twice mine, and they had two rather new cars (Honda an Buick) I think.      I'm coming off a week of three Houston Symphony Tunings, another major Hall, two tunings of the most expensive piano in town, and directing two performances of the opera Amahl and the Night Visitors.   I know I was tired………  But I had just done quite ok on a Petrof for one of my really persnickety customers, so I haven't completely lost my "tuning mind".  I'm mad they got screwed, mad she can't play musically on this pos, but still feel somehow I should have been able to do something to make it work.   Sorry to be kind of nuts here, but I'm feeling kind of lost.

les bartlett 


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