----- Original Message ----- From: "JOHN ROSS" <jrpiano at win.eastlink.ca> To: "Pianotech List" <pianotech at ptg.org> Sent: Monday, July 09, 2007 12:14 PM Subject: Re: Here comes the pitch >I ran into the low pitch, scenario a few times. The fellow who had tuned >them previously, was vision impaired, so I assumed, he was erring on the >side of safety, to lessen the chance of string breakage. > Never did get around to asking him, why. Why? He is lazy and probably not a good tuner. Thats my guess... I have never made this my practis. If the damn thing is flat I bring her on up. If a few strings pop, well... Oh, look, more work! > John Ross > Windsor, Nova Scotia, Canada > jrpiano at win.eastlink.ca > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Ron Nossaman" <rnossaman at cox.net> > To: "Pianotech List" <pianotech at ptg.org> > Sent: Monday, July 09, 2007 4:54 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 >> > >
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