Customer Complaint on Tuning

[Will Truitt]

Hi Bill:

 

No, I don’t think so.  I have never been one to stretch my octaves in the
last octave or so the way  some technicians do.   She’s not the kind of
player who would rifle off the arpeggios, within which pitch discrimination
shows itself most prominently.   And she wasn’t complaining about the
tuning, but about the piano being way too bright.  This when I’ve got the
piano already voiced down to the tired marshmallow level, and out of step
with the lower half of the piano, which is much brighter and suits her fine.
What my audiologist friend Laura said seemed to ring true for the kind of
response my customer was having.  My sessions at the piano where I was
addressing her concerns were always very friendly, but precise and probing
in trying to get to what she was hearing.  

 

None of us want to get old, or admit that we have lost some of the things
that are most important to us and our individual identities.  I can think of
my father still driving the last few years before he passed away.  Scared me
to death  to get in the car with him, his vision was so poor and his
response time so very slow.  Should he have been driving?  Probably not, and
I encouraged him not to.  But his driving was just fine according to him.
It’s called Denial, and he does not lack for company in this infirmity of
aging – most men respond this way.  

 

Treat our customers with kindness and respect, and we can leave our egos out
of this, since we know the problem is not us.  Satisfy them if we can, and
otherwise let it be.  None of us are getting any younger, and  too soon we
may be in the position where others are making similar judgments about us.  

 

Will

 

 

 

From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of Bill Peterson
Sent: Friday, August 08, 2008 10:33 PM
To: Pianotech List
Subject: Re: Customer Complaint on Tuning

 

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 <mailto:surfdog at metrocast.net>  

To: 'Pianotech List' <mailto:pianotech at ptg.org>  

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

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20080809/f25bb88c/attachment.html