When is it enough?

[Newton Hunt]

Dear Karen and Brian Trout,

I understand both of your positions.

I taught piano tuning as my full time occupation for a number of
years.  My first priority for the students was quality.  Second was
speed.

Once you have an understanding of what you wish do accomplish and are
able to do what  you wish to then you start working on your speed.  

Steve Fairchild not with standing, speed is where you income is most
effected.  You are ot tuning pianos for charity or volunteerism but to
make a living.  Evolving your speed and increasing your skills and
understanding of your craft go hand in hand and must be an on going
process throughout your work life.

Maintaining an incompetent is worse than not having anyone at all. 
Since the dealer has Brian then he should not have to pay twice for
the same work but should pay you once but a little more and fire the
other.  This is a poor and costly business practice.

I to prefer to take my time and do the best I can under the
circumstances but also I can work FAST if I have to, I just don't like
to.

The most common error I see is taking too much time deciding if a note
is in the right position by using more checks than needful for that
decision, very time costly.  Determine which tests give you the most
information the fastest and drop the others unless you want to play
games with yourself and the piano.

The second most common error I see is doing the same thing too many
time, If a note is on then leave it and go onto the next one.  Doing
it and doing it and doing it is  counter productive in the extreme.  

Amazingly it is more effective to tune a piano twice in a short time
than to spend the same time doing it once.  If you pitch raise a piano
as quickly as you can and then tune the piano a second time as quickly
as you can you will be amazed at the time savings and the quality of
the work you do.  Try it.

Work for quality and work for speed, they both will improve.

		Newton