Customer Complaint on Tuning

[Bill Peterson]

Hi will, Do you think that her problem might be that the stretch is hurting her ears.  My ears are very critical of the stretch in the upper octaves.  

Bill Peterson
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Will Truitt 
  To: 'Pianotech List' 
  Sent: Friday, August 08, 2008 5:00 PM
  Subject: RE: Customer Complaint on Tuning


  To our poor suffering brother Terry, Ron, and others (including me) who have known this terrible fate.  Might I add a small tale of my own that may shed some light?

   

  I have a customer in her early 80's whose Knabe grand action I rebuilt about 3 years ago.  When I go to tune the piano (which I do every six months), she is always asking me to voice down the treble.  She says the middle and the bass are just fine, but (and she'll go over the piano, bang some notes "Hear that, it's way too bright, it's awful").  Well, I've voiced the dickens out of top 3 octaves of that piano, it's like milquetoast to my ears.  The rest of the piano is much brighter, and I've voiced this piano enough to feel like I've taken too much away;  BUT it's still too bright to her.  She's a really sweet lady, and her hearing is not perfect but certainly not at the 120 db TV level yet.

   

  We've been doing this for a while.  She still likes me and I like her.  But I am thinking to myself, what's going on here?  So I approached Laura, who is an audiologist and a good friend (we have been teaching skiing at the same mountain in New Hampshire for a number of years) and asked her what might be going on with my customer's hearing.  She explained to me that there is a condition that some older people can develop where they develop a hypersensitivity to higher frequencies that actually can cause them discomfort when hearing those higher frequencies.   She told me the name of the condition but I have forgotten it since it was last winter when I asked her (sorry).

   

  The person isn't really aware that they have this condition - they are aware of the symptoms, which cause them discomfort.  Which, of course, makes it hard for them to understand why you are having such a blasé reaction to all this, when (to their mind) it's so obvious that any fool can hear it.  

   

  Basically, it's a situation you cannot win.  She doesn't want to hear "It's you, Lady!"  

   

  So, yeh Terry, you got it right.  Smile, wiggle a few tuning pins, and say: "Oh, yeah, that should sound better now...?"

   

  Will

   

  From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Farrell
  Sent: Friday, August 08, 2008 1:24 PM
  To: pianotech at ptg.org
  Subject: Customer Complaint on Tuning

   

  Oh boy. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. Should have just erased the message and not called..... 

   

  Lady leaves message on my answering machine: I LIVE AT 123 MY STREET. MY PIANO NEEDS TUNING. I LIVE AT 123 MY STREET. IT SOUNDS HORRIBLE. I LIVE AT 123 MY STREET. I NEED IT TUNED TOMORROW. I LIVE AT 123 MY STREET. CALL ME.

   

  After my ears stopped ringing, I call her..... and they started ringing again. Made appointment. Pull up in her driveway Wednesday - I could hear the TV LOUD in the driveway. 120 year old lady - very sweet - she had the big eyes and high cheekbones - could tell she must have been a knockout 95 years ago. I asked how long it had been since last tuning. She didn't answer so I asked: HOW LONG SINCE LAST TUNING. She said many years. Anyway, I did a 25 cent pitch raise and tuned the so-so condition 1970-ish Baldwin console.

   

  FWIW, she is a "musicologist". What is that? She also teaches piano.

   

  She calls me yesterday and says that some notes still don't sound right together. I didn't have the heart to ask which ones (like maybe C and C#?). So I told her I would call her Sunday early afternoon and stop by to check it out. (I have a morning appointment nearby that day.)

   

  I know what it will sound like - a crappy little old Baldwin console that just had a pitch raise and a tuning. She's going to plunk away at several keys, not hear a darn thing, and ask me: "see? hear that?"

   

  So what's the plan? Smile, wiggle a few tuning pins, and say: "Oh, yeah, that should sound better now...?"

   

  This is my second call-back on a tuning in 10 years. The other one was a few years ago from a 115 year old lady who couldn't hear a fire engine honking it's horn if she was standing right next to it.......

   

  :-(

   

  Terry Farrell
  Farrell Piano

   

  www.farrellpiano.com
  terry at farrellpiano.com
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