Boy did I have a great time this morning. Had three tunings scheduled at a small "something for everyone" music studio. The last tuner had charged him $60 each in September, and he had fished me for a discount for the three when he made the appointment. No dice, but he scheduled anyway. Hmmmm. He showed me the pianos when we got there. Three moderately old and very flat and nasty sounding spinets. These were tuned when? Yup, it said 9/08 on the keys, and A-433 on the first one. What? This guy tuned these pianos at a professional music studio without bringing them up to pitch? Yes, that's exactly what he did, and didn't mention it to the owner. The piano tuned at 433 was a full semitone low, and another that was marked as having been tuned at 440 was nearly a half semitone down. RH% was in the mid 40s. The owner asked if it was remotely possible for the pianos to drop that much. All three? No, not remotely. So the owner is now looking at three jumbo pitch changes in addition to the non discounted tunings. He's less than thrilled, but says go for it. I did the first one, and hunted down the owner to come play it before I did any others. Told him it was to give him the chance to run me off early before I did any more damage. He was impressed. The other tuner didn't do that. Gee, really? He was pleased, and said to press on. Number two, full semitone PR&T. No appreciable drama other than my muttering. Number three, the tuner left a note on his card on this one. Tuned A-440, both bridges bad. Sure enough, the bass bridge speaking side pins were migrating in a full length crack leaving barely noticeable side bearing on the pins. The low tenor was pretty cracked up too. The whole piano was about a half semitone down. And no, the cracked bridges didn't make the whole piano drop 50 cents, it just hadn't been pulled to anywhere near 440 when it was tuned. So here we have a tuner that says he tuned to 440, and didn't, in a professional music studio on a piano that shouldn't have been tuned at all with the bridges in that condition. The owner was gone by then, as I had been informed, so I found someone else to show the problem to, declined to tune it, gave him a rough repair price range, and baled out. Discount Tuner is, meanwhile, still out there spreading - uh, joy, wherever he slithers. Some days, it's safer in the shop. Some days, not. This was one of those days. Ron N
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