Customer Complaint on Tuning

[Nick Gravagne]

Hi Terry,

 

No sarcasm intended, but if this is your first experience with a "nutty"
customer, then you've been lucky indeed. Many if not most on this list have
been down this road more than once, but fortunately the percentage of times
is very, very low. We all have our war stories, and they are a part of this
wild and wooly little industry of ours.  

 

The consensus on this list is that your customer's credentials in many ways
are highly questionable, that she is grief and more grief, cut your losses.
I don't mean to sound contrary to these thoughtful suggestions, but just to
take the other side for the moment. 

 

Although your narrative drips with emotion and angst from both parties
involved (and again, I understand), what seems to missing is a reasonably
clear sense of your customer's complaint. Exactly what does she mean when
she said," hear that? It's wrong! It's all wrong!" She says her students are
complaining: ask to talk to those students. Ask her to get them on the
phone. I'm only half serious, it's too late now, but it would have been a
good call when it first came up.

 

There are four real possibilities here: 1) she in fact does "hear" something
obnoxious, whether you do or not, but was unable to adequately communicate
it to you; 2) a blind test of several pianists and techs would insist, as
you do, that she is mistaken; 3) she knows full well that she is trying to
pull a fast one; 4) she is a nut case. 

 

If we leave all excuses about the piano's deficiencies aside, you are sure
that you have exhausted all reasonable attempts to solve number one, then
this issue is dead, and any further pursuit is wasteful unless you want to
go back for your own satisfaction (perhaps take along a tuning buddy with
you). But you need to be convinced, not the rest of us on this list, but
you, that you have exhausted number 1, within reason (nobody has all the
answers). As I'm sure you know, these can be amazing learning experiences,
the kind that have paved the way for most of us when we later found
ourselves in a similar tricky situation, but now with a fine piano and
pianist neither of which could easily be dismissed. 

 

Many years ago, my first encounter like this involved a lady who referred to
her piano keys as do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do. She complained about note
fa. Was it tuning? I showed her how it fit correctly with other intervals.
Still no good. So, with her standing by I tuned the note to where she said,
"Yes, I think that is where it should be."  Now it sounded awful with other
intervals and she had to agree. Yet back where the note blended, she still
wasn't satisfied. So was it the unison only? The particular voice of that
unison? The harmonic structure of that note only? The stretch of my
temperament? All these things?  

 

Then there is the "hanky trick" -- one of my favorites, especially on
uprights. Place an ordinary thin handkerchief in front of the strings and
play the notes. The sounds will be mellow but discernable. If the customer
generally sparks up and says, "Oh, you know it's a bit too dull, but it is
noticeably more pleasing to my ears", then you have a voicing issue.
However, if you were to try this trick with your customer now, and she likes
the idea, I would not proceed if I were you as the chances of even more
frustration are lurking, and it is here that I agree with many of the List
postings.

 

As to my do, re, mi customer? I was too green at the time to exhaust number
1, and I was happy to refund her money. And with a clear head I went out and
got some lunch --- a terrible tuna sandwich on a normal day, but it tasted
real good that day.

 

Refunds are generally a bad idea, but not all cases are the same. Sleep on
it and follow your best sense of things.

 

All the best.

 

PS to the List . if refunds are going to be the new thread, then please make
it so.

 

Nick Gravagne, RPT

Piano Technicians Guild

Member Society Manufacturing Engineers

Voice Mail 928-476-4143

 

  _____  

From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of Farrell
Sent: Friday, August 15, 2008 8:30 AM
To: Pianotech List
Subject: Re: Customer Complaint on Tuning

 

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

 

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