"Warranty" your tuning

[Robert Wilson]

--- MoodyPiano@AOL.COM wrote:
> Dear List,
> 
> I am a list lurker and enjoy reading posts in the
> attempts of bettering my 
> ever growing knowledge of pianos, but I am not a
> piano technician, rather I 
> work with 3 technicians.  I thought that this post
> might add a little levity 
> :-)
> 
> A call came in today from a customer who had
> something "very wrong" with one 
> of the notes on her piano.  She had it tuned 2 weeks
> ago and today one of the 
> notes started "acting funny".  She was quite
> displeased that her tuning 
> wouldn't hold for "at least a month"  and wasn't
> there some "warranty" that 
> we apply to tunings.  Now for one out of whack note
> our technician would go 
> out and take care of it but I also tried to take a
> moment to explain how 
> weather and other factors can play a part in tuning
> stability.  My thought 
> was that maybe recent weather changes could have
> been the problem.  After a 
> brief "education" on how certain things can affect
> the tuning, I told her 
> that our technician would call her back when he came
> in.   Upon the return 
> call she received from our technician she was asked
> to play, over the phone, 
> the piano so our technician could understand what
> her problem was.  She 
> explained that she was a beginner player and was
> trying to practice the 
> exercises her teacher had given her.  So over the
> phone she played her first 
> exercise (the first four notes of the C chord) C, D,
> E,  & F.  This sounded 
> good, then she played her second exercise - F, G, A,
> B.  It was that "darn B 
> that had been giving her problem all day long!"  So
> at our technician's 
> request he had her play the B flat instead of B (F,
> G, A, B flat).  She 
> exclaimed, "That's how its supposed to sound!"  She
> had been bugged all day 
> that "her piano wasn't holding its tune" and all it
> was was an inexperienced 
> player playing the wrong notes of an F chord.
> 
> But of course, if something isn't right, its the
> work of the technician :-)
> 
> ~Lanie
> _________________________________________________
> Moody Piano & Organ
> Metro West Plaza (rear)
> 796 Boston Post Road East
> Marlborough, MA 01752
> 
> Phone 508-877-2222 or 508-229-3601 • Fax
> 508-303-8996
> <A
>
HREF="mailto:MoodyPiano@aol.com">MoodyPiano@aol.com</A>
> • <A
>
HREF="http://www.bushellcompanies.com">www.bushellcompanies.com</A>
> 
> 



I had a similar call from a player piano customer.  I
had just tuned his piano and he called two days later
to say that it was horribly out of tune.  I went back
there and found that he had fiddled with the player
mechanism and knocked off some of the tubes.  He had
replaced them in the wrong order - so the piano was
not out of tune but actually playing wrong notes!

Some people!

Bob.

__________________________________________________
Terrorist Attacks on U.S. - How can you help?
Donate cash, emergency relief information
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/US/Emergency_Information/