Customer Complaint on Tuning

[Gerald Cousins]

Terry,
I've experienced this type of customer before when I was in my practice in NY. A real challenge to oneself.

First suggestion is to make absolute certain that both of you are speaking of the same thing.
Her "hear that? " may be hammers double striking, clicking or any of a thousand variables which have nothing to do with your tuning.
If and after you can confirm that her perception is different from yours (as to the tuning) then you'll have to decide on an alternative approach to this situation.  You mentioned that she is "teaching" on this piano. Perhaps she has become so used to the lower pitch that this console has now (being on pitch) has a different harmonic/upper partial resonance. Where the piano is now (sound wise) may be correct to you or 99.99% of techs but nonetheless wrong to the customer.

In the case of field work, one has to always weigh the benefit ratio of happy customers or upset customers to word of mouth vs pride of craftsmanship and doing the right thing under the circumstances. Diplomacy always needs to be considered (not to suggest that your are not being diplomatic). It's good that you are keeping a dialogue open with the customer.

I would suggest that you take this as a craftsman challenge and try to really diagnose the underlying problem. Maybe the answer is to put the tuning back to -25c? Maybe not. After all, many "musicians" are pushing the A up to 445 or even 450. Is that wrong in terms of the instrument was designed? 

Ultimately, it may be that this customer is different but after she/he is still keeping us (you) working and remember she/he is still a customer. You will have to decide if you want her as a client.     

Gerry Cousins,RPT

PS (list) I don't want to open up a hot debate on pitch ethics just hoping to offer up another possible perspective. Please be gentle with any flames.  ;-{ )






Wow. This is a first for me. This lady is nuts. I checked 
the piano out this past Sunday. It had a few unisons singing a bit (IMHO, not 
uncommon a week after doing a 25-cent pitch raise), but otherwise sounded fine 
(well, as "fine" as most any 1970 Baldwin console sounds). And I told her so. I 
checked octaves, thirds, fourths, etc., etc. and it's all in the 
ballpark.
 
She plays a tune and stops and says "hear that? it's 
wrong"! Well, sure, anytime you play an E and an F# together it sounds pretty 
bad! But she'd play other things and stop and say "that's wrong". Sounded fine 
to me. I didn't know what to say really. We did talk about the possibility 
that she had just gotten used to how it sounded when it was way out of tune. She 
agreed to play it a bit more and see.
 
So she calls me just now ranting and raving "it's all 
wrong, it's all wrong".  She says even her students are complaining. What 
the ........
 
She tells me that some times one song will sound fine, and 
then the next one sounds wrong.
 
Does the piano good. Of course not. It sounds like a 
crappy little Baldwin console that has sat too many years on the back porch 
(enclosed) of a home in Florida. But it sounds to be in as good a tune as any 
little piano like it.
 
So I guess the next step is to simply tell her that I 
don't seem to be able to satisfy her piano service needs and that she might be 
more satisfied with someone else's services. But that leaves one question 
remaining - in her view I have not tuned her piano - in my view I have. I don't 
think I should be returning her $95 (yeah, yeah, I didn't charge her for the 
pitch raise....). But then again, I'm sure she's on some sort of fixed income, 
and I've really never had an unhappy customer before......
 
I don't think there is any real good resolution to this 
situation. Any great ideas? Just tell her to find someone else and leave it at 
that? Seems like the only thing that makes any sense to me - but I kinda hate 
taking her money also.....
 
Terry Farrell
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20080815/3783bcdf/attachment.html