stability of pitch raises (Ron's question)

[Farrell]

Hi Kevin, I don't think we have ever met, so I tend to have a hard time
remembering who has been at this profession for 400 years and who might be
as new as me. Am I right to think you have been around for a goodly while???
Other comments below:

Terry Farrell

----- Original Message -----
From: "Kevin E. Ramsey" <ramsey@extremezone.com>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Sunday, September 02, 2001 10:39 PM
Subject: Re: stability of pitch raises (Ron's question)


>     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.

When a piano is only a tad flat - maybe 10 cents - I will do this also.

> 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.

This is what I do not understand. Charge extra when extra work is needed,
not for serious neglect. You say that you don't "punish", but it sounds like
you do here. It appears you are at least in part basing a charge on how it
may affect/encourage future maintenance of the piano. It seems best to me to
divorce oneself from all that and just simply charge X amount for however
many pitch raise passes you think the piano is going to need. Assess the
needs and charge accordingly. I'm not trying to be argumentative here, but I
think it is good to make this distinction.

>     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.

Now this is where my original question came from. What I am trying to do
here is understand how slow I may be. I assume here that you have been at
this profession for a goodly number of years. I read so many posts from
techs that I am doing something wrong if I spent more than 20 minutes on a
pitch raise. Some claim to do 6 to 8 minute pitch raises. OK, 61 cents is a
large one pass pitch raise (I realize in this particular case you did two
more octaves), so lets give this pitch raise 15 to 20 minutes. Throw in
another 5 or 10 for the extra two octaves. We are still below a half hour.
Now the tuning claims - never more than an hour - 40 minutes - 30 minutes.
So how about 45 minutes for tuning? Then we have 45 + 25 = 70 minutes. One
hour and ten minutes. What you did usually takes me right about 2 hours, and
I would not have done any voicing.

I'm not trying to pick on you Kevin - I don't know that you have ever
claimed to be one of these 20 minute tuners - but is anyone willing to give
an opinion - Are these claims of 8 minute pitch raises and 30 minute tunings
just testosterone running wild? Or are many/most tuners that quick after 10
years in the field? (Again, I am trying to flush out the truth, not pick on
anyone!)

>     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
>