Marshall, Jim Coleman- George Defebaugh taught a pitch raise class that I attended in the 80’s at convention. If I remember correctly we were told if it takes more than 15-20 minutes you’re taking too long. My point here is that we don’t want to work for free but a Wham Bam P.R. takes less time than the time you take worrying about it. One tech told me it takes longer to explain it to the customer, than to just do it. School tunings are often not much fun for a variety of reasons ( condition of the pianos, vandalized pianos , crap in the pianos, access when you want, noise around the piano ,waiting to get paid), but they can fill in the empty spaces in your schedule and create lots of contacts that will build your clientele. I suggest that you consider each piano’s needs and the time you wish spend on it. Maybe a quick pitch raise, maybe spacing hammers, adjusting lost motion, tightening action screws, lubing squeaky pedal. Cut down your tuning time and pick one other thing that the piano needs each time you’re there. You can agonize over every wavy unison or really improve the playability of each piano. That will build appreciation of your skill’s and ultimately your reputation. The perfect unison in a practice room might last a week where the other improvements much longer. They are paying you X amount to SERVICE the piano. Fit in what you can for that amount and forget about permission. Tom Driscoll Hi Tom, Thanks for what you posted. I sure enjoy tuning for the schools, but the pianos need so much attention. There are some things I am not able to address such as case parts is too much disrepair,but reguation issues I can address. I might return to the pianos just to fix a couple without it costing too much of my time of course. If you find broken pars in pianos would you jut fix it or charge them for the parts i.e. broken jacks etc. Most of what I'm finding onthese Everette school pinaos is lost motion issues and possibly let off issues, key will play and in the middle of tuning jam up where the hammer won't even lift won't repeat. Where would I find replacement hinges for piano lids or the little bolt that screws in the back of an everette lid to keepit in place? Thanks Marshall Wow a pitch raise in that short of time. I can get one done in a half hour to 45 minutes. Marshall Gisondi Piano Technician Marshall's Piano Service pianotune05 at hotmail.com 215-510-9400 Graduate of The School of Piano Technology for the Blind www.pianotuningschool.org Vancouver, WA _________________________________________________________________ Microsoft brings you a new way to search the web. Try Bing™ now http://www.bing.com?form=MFEHPG&publ=WLHMTAG&crea=TEXT_MFEHPG_Core_tagline_try bing_1x1 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20090924/7110d9ed/attachment.htm>
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