Here comes the pitch

[Robin Blankenship]

Well, there seems to be a Mister Minus 100 Cents right here in the 
south-central Virginia area. A huge percentage of the pianos that, when I 
first see them, are at an even 100 cents low, were last tuned by the same 
fellow. What consistency!!!

Robin Blankenship

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Barbara Richmond" <piano57 at insightbb.com>
To: "Pianotech List" <pianotech at ptg.org>
Sent: Monday, July 09, 2007 4:25 PM
Subject: Re: Here comes the pitch


> Hey, I thought that guy lived in Peoria!  :-)
>
> Barbara Richmond, RPT
> near Peoria, Illinois
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Ron Nossaman" <rnossaman at cox.net>
> To: "Pianotech List" <pianotech at ptg.org>
> Sent: Monday, July 09, 2007 2:54 PM
> Subject: Here comes the pitch
>
>
>>
>> Mid morning, I tuned (at) a Wurlitzer spinet, with a half-to three 
>> quarter semitone pitch raise. No surprise there, but I got to looking at 
>> the printing on the keys inside and noted the last two times it was 
>> tuned. On 9/27/97, it was "tuned @ 1/8 low", it said. I wondered why such 
>> a moderate pitch raise wasn't done with the tuning. Then on 10/21/2000, 
>> it was "R to A435", according to the next key. Again, why wasn't it 
>> brought up to pitch? I looked it over, and found no indication that it 
>> wasn't structurally sound enough to bring up, so I did, and tuned (at) it 
>> at pitch.
>>
>> A stop on the way back for lunch, to look over a Kimball console they 
>> wanted to sell, found a piano in not bad shape, and over a semitone low. 
>> Again, the keys indicated that the same guy had tuned it in 1998, and 
>> left it over a half semitone low.
>>
>> I find this guy's name in low pitched pianos all around, and he seems 
>> pathologically reluctant to pull anything at all up to pitch. I don't get 
>> it. A piano that got 50 cents low naturally is so uneven that it won't 
>> tune in one pass at any pitch  even if the center is left at it's 
>> approximate pitch, so why not make two full passes and pull the bloody 
>> thing up where it at least has a chance of ending up where it's supposed 
>> to be? The owners of these two pianos paid this guy to tune their pianos 
>> and he didn't even make an attempt. Many times, I've explained the need 
>> for a big pitch raise to an incredulous first time customer who can't 
>> understand the need because the piano was just tuned a year or two ago. 
>> "Why didn't the last tuner do that"?  Why indeed?
>>
>> Off to tune one of my redesigns. This ought to feel like a vacation.
>>
>> Ron N
>