Hi John, After consulting with the other techs working the PTG booth in the exhibit hall, I settled on tuning at 8 p.m. Friday night (the piano had been delivered at noon) and then going in at 5:30 a.m. Saturday morning for touch-up (part of the work order). When I arrived at the arena, the piano was open (lid up). The tenor and treble were low--around 5.5 cents, the bass less. I did the first pass and then fine tuned. After raising the pitch, a truck backed into the arena; I didn't pay much attention, just worked away. Sometime later, I realized I hadn't heard anyone working or talking or anything. I looked around and saw five or six guys just sitting there in the arena seats. I said, "Are you waiting for me to be done?" One said, "Yeah. We have stuff to unload and the lift on the truck makes noise." Wow, I've never been treated with such respect! I told them to go ahead and do their stuff--just refrain from whistling. They seemed pretty surprised, but said they'd work as quietly as possible. The CFIII was easy to tune, but wowie it could've used some voicing (IMO), and I didn't have the authority to do it. I even dreamed about voicing it that night. I also dreamed about missing an airline flight--a common dream when I have to get up earlier than usual. :-) When I returned Saturday morning the piano had drifted up a whopping .2 cents at A4. The octaves and tenths were good. I didn't count, but there probably about 10 or so notes that could use some minor tweaking. Yes, it's just the All-State competition concert--on the other hand, they've had me back these years because they've appreciated my work (or so I was told)--or maybe I'm just the only one around willing to do it. ;-) Barbara Richmond, RPT near Peoria, Illinois ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Formsma" <formsma at gmail.com> To: pianotech at ptg.org Sent: Friday, January 30, 2009 7:46:32 AM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central Subject: Re: [pianotech] How long to wait to tune... Barbara, Sorry I can't offer any particular sage advice -- never faced anything close to this situation before. Do let us know what you decided to do and how it works out. Only thing I can think of is to do your best and realize you ARE a good technician regardless. And keep saying "It's not my fault" as a mantra. <G> -- JF On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 6:13 PM, Barbara Richmond < piano57 at comcast.net > wrote: Hi, I provide much of the tuning service for the Illinois Music Educators Association All-State Conference--you know, one of those state-wide high school extravaganzas . The big concert is held in the arena (ice) and the piano has to be ready by 6 a.m. Saturday morning. In the past, the piano was delivered on Thursday, I'd tune it on Friday afternoon and then go in early on Saturday to do any necessary touch up. Well.....this year the venue won't allow the piano to be delivered until noon on Friday. Crud. This was always an easy gig--if you think tuning is easy in a very chilly loading area that smells like garbage and has gargantuan blowers going. Actually, it always worked out well. I believe the piano is spending the night in the truck (temp tonight 11 degrees). I would estimate the temperature at the arena to be around 60 degrees. I suppose I would be spinning my wheels if I tried tuning 6, 7 or 8 hours after delivery. Please correct me if I'm wrong! Otherwise, it looks like a 4:00 a.m. tuning Saturday morning. Bleh... Thanks for your opinions, Barbara Richmond, RPT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20090201/232d9271/attachment.html>
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