Hello: My name is Ileen Kaplan and I have been enjoying this list for several months. I have been a piano technician for 27 years and have been a concert tuner for 25 of those years, having tuned for some of the most well known classical, jazz and rock players around. I feel compelled to respond to this series of communications with an experience that I had. Several years ago I was called in to tune for a two piano concert.It was a venue at which I had tuned for years, They brought in a second Steinway D and I tuned both pianos for the rehearsal and planned to go back and do a second tuning in the late afternoon. Around noon I received a call from the stage manager- apparently the primary artist was VERY unhappy with the tunings- in fact she called them horrible and stood up on the stage proclaiming that I in fact did not know how to tune a piano, thereby castigating me(albeit not to my face) in front of many people. She refused to let me come back and make the pianos acceptable to her. They brought in another tuner(a colleague whom I respect greatly) who was able to satisfy her. It of course rocked my confidence. However, I went on with my work, tried to make sense of what had happened, got lots of advice and learned some new things, continued to do concert tunings and not too long after was publicly thanked for my work on another piano by name from the stage at the end of a solo concert by one of the pickiest pianists on the planet. My point being: even if the worst case scenario happens, as Mr. Foote described(tongue in cheek though no doubt he was) it is possible to pick oneself up, move on, and go on to new levels of ability. Good luck Mr. Farrell, I am sure it will go well! Ileen Kaplan
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