Another thing to consider. Walk awy from the piano once for 10 minutes after say, a pitch raise or after a tuning you thought didn't quite sound good enough. This lets your ear rest. You might be surprised at how much better it actually sounded than you originally thought/ -----Original Message----- From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Rob McCall Sent: Tuesday, August 04, 2009 1:26 AM To: pianotech at ptg.org Subject: Re: [pianotech] Pitch raise criteria Greetings all! I leave for 48 hours and when I get back I have over 50 messages replying to my query! Wow!! Normally, I'd respond to each person who writes, but I think I'm a bit overwhelmed right now so I'm going to summarize what I've learned. First off, I want to give a very hearty thank you to everyone who took the time to respond. Your support is very helpful and deeply appreciated. When I first joined the list, this is the kind of help I was hoping to find amongst the membership, and I must say, you all have exceeded my highest expectations! Okay, here's what I've learned. 1. Pitch raises don't have to be super accurate, just get close, get the correct tension on the strings, and do it quickly without spending too much time on any one note. I'm going to come back through again and fine tune it anyway. 2. I've learned that there are "super-tuners" than can do a pitch raise, then a fine tune, fix a loose hammer, voice a few notes, fix a broken string, drink two cups of coffee, and tell their top 10 favorite stories to their clients and still be gone within the hour! :-) I'll be happy if I can do a pitch raise in 30 minutes and do a tuning in an additional 90 minutes for a total of 2 hours. At least that's my near term goal. 3. I have witnessed a "real" pitch raise since my client's piano was 73 cents flat! :-) 4. I can tune without the temperament strip for the whole piano. I kind of did this in the treble because there was no room to fit a strip in the last 2 octaves. So I did the tune and the unisons concurrently using a Papp's treble mute. I didn't see the point in going back through a second time to do unisons considering I probably wouldn't have had the patience. I'm glad to see my "experiment" validated! 5. Concert work is a whole lot different than a home piano. If it's within 20 cents or less at home, I can most likely get it stable and sounding nice in one pass. This was also validated when I came back 4 days later on this piano to fine tune and it was at worst 15 cents flat. I was able to get a very nice tuning in one pass on this second effort. Time will tell how stable it remains. 6. When you do a pitch raise, make another appointment with the client about 30-60 days in the future to tune once again. (I did this!) Forewarn them that it may go out between now and then and that this is normal behavior for a piano that has been resting for the last 7 years. 7. I treat my ETD like I'm entering negotiations with a business partnership. "Trust... but verify." 8. It's okay to start tuning at the bass/tenor break and go up and finish with the bass. I, too, find the bass much easier to tune so I like to save it for last. 9. Ron N. always comes up with either practical, sage, or witty advice. Pick two... :-) "Find the practical balance between cost, time, and performance requirements that works for both you, and your customer. Pick two." Excellent advice! Thanks! 10. I'm not sure I have a 10, but who's ever heard of a top 9 list? Thanks again for everyone's responses. I did read all of them and gathered some snippet of wisdom even if I didn't reply personally. Regards, Rob McCall Murrieta, CA On Aug 01, 2009, at 16:27 , Rob McCall wrote: > Greetings list, > > I just tuned a Samick JS-118 upright yesterday that hadn't been > tuned in 7 years (It had 1 tuning right after they bought it brand > new and that was it!). It was flat by about 73 cents below the > break, and about 45 cents flat above the break. Pretty consistent > throughout. All in all, it turned out very well after a pitch raise > and then a fine tune. > > My question to all of you... What do you use as your criteria for > charging extra for pitch raises? When is it a "pitch raise" to you? > This particular piano was pretty clear cut, but do you have a point > of no return? 20-25 cents? Less or more? > > I use a SAT IV along with some aural checks to back the machine up... > > I'm still earning my wings in this industry and I'm trying to get an > idea of what is considered normal (if there is such a thing!). > Thanks in advance. > > Regards, > > Rob McCall > Murrieta, CA > _____ avast! Antivirus <http://www.avast.com> : Outbound message clean. Virus Database (VPS): 090804-1, 08/04/2009 Tested on: 8/4/2009 8:12:09 AM avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2009 ALWIL Software.
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