That's a great one! Or you could just move the note around until they think its just right. Then pull out an ETD and show them how far off they are! I have occasionally had clients, sometimes musicians, who hear beats and think something is off - especially in the low bass. One band teacher at a a local high school pointed this out to me right after I had tuner the piano. I checked the note (a think it was the lowest c) and it was a slightly wide 6:3 octave - just the way I like. But of course, if you listen to the highest partials in the bass there's all sorts of busy beats happening. He thought octaves were supposed to be totally beatless! I gave him the 5 minute lecture about inharmonicity and he seemed satisfied. Another time I was tuning a music teacher's Steinway S at her house. She also was feeling like the bass was not quite right. I gave her the same lecture and also agreed to buy a tuning wrench for her so she could could give it a try. Her husband (an orchestra teacher) later told me she had fooled around with it, gave up, and never touched the tuning lever again. I have tuned their piano since, and no longer get any complaints. The moral is that sometimes taking the time to educate does work. It helps to have a good concise explanation of inharmonicity and equal temperament. I'm realizing as I write this that a pamphlet could be very helpful. This might be an interesting thing for PTG to put together. A few pictures and diagrams can really help understand this subject. And seeing it in print by the guild would make it authoritative. It would save time trying to explain this stuff to certain people, and it would do a better job. -- Ryan Sowers, RPT Puget Sound Chapter Olympia, WA www.pianova.net On Sun, Oct 3, 2010 at 6:42 AM, Allied PianoCraft < alliedpianocraft at hotmail.com> wrote: > When I get someone like that, I wedge A4, hand them the hammer and ask them > to set the pitch so I can tune the piano to the pitch they set. They never > do it and never bother me again. > > Al - > So far this is the oldest I've ever been. TTMMTMT > > > On Oct 3, 2010, at 12:59 PM, limhseng at gmail.com wrote: > > > Hello, > > How do you explain to a customer who says 'I have absolute pitch and the > moment I touch the keyboard I know its wrong and my electronic tuner says > so'? > > After tuning this piano for close to 2 hrs this comment spoils my day. > > > > Lim > > > > Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld > > Powered by Gee! from StarHub > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20101003/19b81562/attachment-0001.htm>
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