In a message dated 2/18/98 3:07:52 AM, you wrote: > If the piano is too bad in >the rust dept. I sell a restring if possible. I feel we should not just leave >them all where we find them. > >Ed Tomlinson > ><< On old uprights, I don't even find out where the pitch is. I tune it where >it > is, because of the problems you indicated, brittel strings, weak bridges, > rustry strings. etc. If the piano happens to be on pitch, it is a plus, but I > don't attempt to raise it much. > > Willem Blees RPT >> I occupy the middle ground in these situations. I'm all for bringing up the pitch of an old upright if after examination (1.) It looks like it can take the procedure without damage past a broken string or two and (2.) If it is important to the customer to have the piano at A-440. I would never tune a piano low without first discussing with the customer all the pros and cons and letting them make the decision. Many are perfectly happy to just have the piano in tune with itself, especially when it saves them the considerable expense of forcing an old beast up to a pitch it hasn't seen in decades, leaving them with an unstable tuning, several new strings that are going to immediatley stretch flat, etc., etc. Please don't get me wrong, tuning at any pitch other than standard is not something I like to do, and will go to great lengths to talk the owner of any decent piano out of, but the bottom line is that we are tuning for an individual customer, not for ourselves and not for other tuners. The reason that most people own these pianos is because they either don't have the money for anything better or it's just not a big priority. All they know is that after a non-standard tuning the piano sounds good, they didn't have to strain their budget, and if you hadn't told them it was low, they would never have known. In other words, they're happy. Whos going to argue with that? Dave Bunch
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