lesson learned

[Billbrpt@AOL.COM]

In a message dated 6/30/00 8:11:38 AM Central Daylight Time, 
lesbart1@juno.com (Leslie W Bartlett) writes:

<< Two or three questions.
    1) How far "out" out does it have to be before one says "pitch raise
 extra tunings"? (given a decent piano)
    2) How do you get it through customers' heads that there is a problem
 that won't go away in one tuning?
  >>

I'm glad you asked these questions and I haven't had time to read all of the 
other responses, I'm just giving you my own opinion.  I often see how people 
talk of tuning a piano in "one pass", something I almost never do.  I double 
tune almost every piano, even the ones that most technicians might consider 
to be "at pitch".

Why?  Because I don't consider the piano to be "in tune" unless it ends up 
being stable and what I really intended it to be.  Whether by an SAT program 
or orally, each interval, octave and unison must be what I intended or it is 
not right.  In my experience, not just my opinion, this usually cannot be 
achieved by manipulating each tuning pin just once.  Even is the piano is 
close when starting, a single pass will reveal imperfect unisons and pitches 
of certain notes which have drifted slightly as the result of tuning the 
other two strings of a unison.  A second pass is required to correct these 
imperfections.

Because I have deliberately chosen to tune an alternative type of temperament 
and octaves when I tune, my tunings must be above all criticism or else I 
might expect the same problem you had in this instance virtually every time.  
I developed these very rigid standards however long before I started using 
alternative temperaments.  I started out in my community very much the way I 
started out on this List:  a newcomer, no one had heard of me and I had to 
hold my own if I was going to make a living.  I couldn't afford to have other 
technicians confirm that my work was poor.  It had to be a cut above all the 
others and I made sure that it was.

I usually consider that any pitch change that exceeds 20 cents (5 beats per 
second or more at the starting pitch) will need not two but three passes.  If 
the piano is really a half step low, you are only fooling yourself if you 
think you can really get it into tune in under four passes.  Even then, such 
a piano will not hold very long although a customer who has endured that kind 
of condition may think it is OK and hopefully, this will work to your 
advantage.

If you want to avoid a confrontation, you need to inform the customer 
immediately that the piano will require extra work in order to get it into 
tune because it is beyond the point where it can accept a "normal" tuning.  
If they cannot afford or do not want to pay extra, you could offer the 
alternative of only partially correcting the pitch, say 10 to 15 cents in the 
direction it needs to be for standard.  If the piano is say, 30 cents flat, 
this may be fine for them in many cases.

In the case of a newer piano, which it sounds like your customer had, they 
may wonder why a piano which is "only two years old" would be so far off when 
in their experience, they may know of other pianos that may have gone two or 
more years and not lost much pitch at all.  You need to make it clear in a 
case like this that a new piano really is much more unstable.  Be sure to 
check the plate bolts in a grand like this before raising the pitch.  It can 
make a big difference in you stability.

I seem to detect a lot of resistance among some technicians about doing more 
than one pass.  I guess they must think that they will be doing two jobs 
while being paid for only one.  There is an article about pitch raising in 
the June Journal that I just received.  Although I wouldn't really go about 
it in the way described, one common thread I see among people who do multiple 
pass tunings is to not waste time trying to get the piano perfect during the 
rough tuning.  The secret is to keep moving.

It is entirely normal for me to tune the piano twice over completely in 30-45 
minutes.
I can usually do a pitch raise of 20-50 cents and three passes in about one 
hour (and earn the extra fee).  It just takes practice and a concentrated 
effort about moving the tuning hammer from pin to pin without wasting time.  
I rarely break strings and have never in 31 years ever broken a tuning pin.

If it looks to the customer as if you are unsure of yourself, then you can 
expect that they may find fault with your work.  If it appears to them that 
while you are working, each of your movements is accomplishing something 
positive and in the end, after a period of time that doesn't seem either too 
long or too short, they have a piano which produces beautiful music, they 
won't even think about questioning your work.  If they have been told in 
advance that it *may* need tuning again in only a few months, you will be a 
lot further ahead than if they discover that for themselves.

We all learn the hard way, there is no better way.

Bill Bremmer RPT
Madison, Wisconsin