[pianotech] Striving for the "wow" factor...

[Terry Beckingham]

I always feel that I must do the best that I can with what there is to work 
with. If it's a crappy little spinet, then so be it. The customer is paying 
and deserves the best that I can do.

  Yesterday I drove 125 miles to a small town to tune two pianos for a 
concert Where Alexander Tselyakov and his son Daniel were performing. One 
piano was a CFIII which is always a pleasure to tune. The other piano was a 
somewhat abused 6'3" Petrof. I spent about 3 hours on the Petrof before I 
was satisfied with it. In the end, the performers were happy and the 
audience was ecstatic and that's why I do what I do.

Terry Beckingham RPT

At 08:15 AM 5/15/2012 -0700, you wrote:
>
>      Almost every piano made when he lived was made with a "God is 
> watching us" type ethos of craftsmanship. ( Which we see in nearly all 
> 1880-1915 era pianos, and just about everything else made then.) While I 
> agree we should strive to do the best job possible, is it really worth 
> risking one's sanity on some truly awful specimen? (A "Grand" brand 
> spinet comes to mind, along with some of the worst Kimballs.) So cheaply 
> made that it severely twists with each pass of the pins??? I'd rather 
> save my sanity and tell the customer the piano will only sound so-so, 
> regardless of how much of my life-force I expend on it, charge them 
> accordingly, and offer to help them find a better one.
>
>Euphonious Thumpe
>From: Terry Beckingham <t46xd8jb at xplornet.com>
>To: pianotech at ptg.org
>Sent: Monday, May 14, 2012 3:20 PM
>Subject: Re: [pianotech] Striving for the "wow" factor, was Re: Exams 
>discussion - Odd?
>
>I'm not sure, but I think it was William Braid White who said that every 
>tuning should be a concert tuning. That is to say that every tuning should 
>be done as well as possible. That's the way I do it.