stability of pitch raises (Ron's question)

[Kevin E. Ramsey]

    OK, Ron. I'll try this again.

 1).   I habitually do two pass tunings, ( usually because the piano is off
more than 3 or 4 cents from concert pitch.) But! I don't always find it
necessary to do so, nor do I charge extra for two passes on pianos on which
the customer is really interested in maintaining.

2). Yes, I use an ETD for almost all pitch raises, but I will do some
aurally, kind of as a test, just to keep my ears sharp. When the fancy
strikes me.

3).On the other hand, I will not hesitate to charge extra for serious
neglect. Otherwise I am encouraging the future neglect of the instrument,
and doing extra work without compensation. After all, why should I charge
the same on an instrument which hasn't been tuned in ten years, as one I see
regularly.

    I just tuned a used (hardly) Yamaha M1A which the customer had purchased
twenty years ago. They thought that they would like to learn to play, but
when they found out that it wasn't as easy as it looked, they just let it
go. They may have had it tuned once in all that time. They called me for an
appraisal, and I inspected the piano and gave them a good one. While I was
there, the lady of the house said that they really should get it tuned
before they tried to sell it. I sold them the pitch raise tuning right there
by telling them that I could do it right now, and waive the appraisal fee,
and save them an extra trip. The piano was 61 cents flat at A440, going to
about a half step flat at octave seven. I charged them about $95, was done
in about two hours, and everybody's happy. BTW, I had to pitch raise octaves
5 & 6 twice, otherwise, everything dropped right in real nice.
    That was me who said I charged extra to "punish" neglectful people. I
don't really have that mind-set, but I heard someone at a Guild meeting say
that once, and I said, "Yeah, extra work means extra pay."  I don't ever ask
anybody else to do work for nothing, why should I have to?
    So, I did the best for the customer, I didn't cheat them, I got paid
fairly well for two hours work, and the piano sounded great. Did some minor
voicing for free even. That's what I liked about it; Everybody wins.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Ron Nossaman" <RNossaman@KSCABLE.com>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Sunday, September 02, 2001 11:33 AM
Subject: Re: stability of pitch raises (Ron's question)


> OK folks,
> I got a couple of good responses to the actual question early on, but this
> has once again wandered off into a series of answers not relating to the
> question asked. The question was, and still is:
>
> ************************************************************************
> If folks are habitually doing two pass tunings anyway, and since they're
> probably using an ETD that does pitch raises within a couple of cents of
> dead on in one pass (as we read repeatedly), why would they find it
> necessary to charge anything above the cost of a tuning for a pitch
> adjustment?
> ***********************************************************************
>
> I do, believe me, understand that it takes longer and is more work to do a
> two pass pitch raise and tuning than a one pass tuning. I also understand,
> believe me, that you can't do a substantial (no numbers, just somewhere
off
> pitch) pitch correction as accurately in one pass as in two. That's why I
> didn't ask that particular question - nor am I likely to. I am, in
> practice, an active tuner/technician, and live this stuff on a daily basis
> so I'm quite familiar with the reactions of pianos to pitch adjustments. I
> don't need the sales pitch, I'm merely asking for an explanation answering
> my question. If anyone is interesting in clearing this up for me, please
> read the question again and, if what you habitually do corresponds to the
> question in that you (1) habitually do two pass tunings, (2) tune with an
> ETD, and (3) charge extra for pitch adjustments, I'd like to hear your
> reasoning justifying the extra charge.
>
> I also asked another related question regarding how those who charge for
> pitch adjustments based on how far off pitch the piano is, determine how
> far off pitch the piano is. I still haven't gotten an answer on this one,
> which baffles me. This has gotten so much traffic through the years that I
> was sure I'd get a veritable avalanche of cogent and clever methods from
> those who habitually quote cents deviation in their posts about pitch
> adjustments. How can one compute charges on something they can't define?
>
> Maybe it's just me, but I find honest answers to these sort of simple
> fundamental questions to be far more valuable, as well as far more
> difficult to get, than information on how to get tape residue off of
keytops.
>
> Ron N