Birdcage/tipping

[Conrad Hoffsommer]

Bill,

>Although I'm sure Conrad would not want to tune such a difficult piano every
>day, he knows that he doesn't have to.  This is an exception but as Michiel
>says,
>   <Birdcage pianos are pianos, aren't they?
> And who tune pianos?
> Yes, pianotuners.>
>
>He probably thought he was charging a lot.  But as one RPT once told me, "You
>know when they tip that you didn't charge as much as you should have".


For the sake of brevity I did leave out part of the tipping scenario.  At
the time (1979) I was working for a store.  Part of the reason for the good
tip was probably that the customer knew I wasn't getting all of the fee.  My
current pricing schedule does pretty well eliminate tipping.

You are quite right about my not _having_ to tune them, certainly not now.
Back then I was still trying to make a silk purse out of every sow's ear I
found. Now that I'm in hog country, I just go for a good market price.

Re: non-standard pitch
As I recall my methods at the time, I probably searched for the lowest pitch
(relative to what it should be), pulled it up as far as it seemed stable and
tuned the rest of the piano to that. So basically it was a pitch lowering,
but for an 1840's vintage instrument it certainly avoided breaking strings
and made it playable with itself. All caveats imaginable were given.

Conrad

Conrad Hoffsommer, RPT		hoffsoco@martin.luther.edu