Aaargh!! Chapter Two ...

[The Leshers]

In the absence of a pool table, this might have been their fancy eatin' table, with the concave, spandex-matching nook for the head-of-table place setting.  Drink holders underneath.

When it's time to do the dishes, roll the whole mess to the sink, and put it in table-clearing mode with the lid prop.  Nice.  

Cliff Lesher
Winfield, PA
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Mike McCoy 
  To: Pianotech List 
  Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2007 9:03 PM
  Subject: Re: Aaargh!! Chapter Two ...


  Had a similar issue yesterday as well. New customer 3 days ago, drove up to a mediocre 2-story that looked like the Clampetts place (before they struck black gold, Texas tea). Broken, rusted toys, tools, junk all over the place outside. The woman was dressed in nasty looking stretch clothes, hair looked it hadn't been washed in a week. Inside we weaved our way through stacks and stacks of books, magazines, clothes piles and clothes piles and clothes piles, back to a small, filthy, junk pile 12 x 20 living room to the piano.... a 1980's S&S B, huh, not exactly what I expected. Tuned it no prob, but it played badly and needed the damper upstop rail adjusted. She needed to leave so we scheduled that for today. She got her checkbook from her "purse", (a gallon zip lock bag) and paid me. 
   Today I adjusted the rail and she said her husband wanted me to tune the piano again, it was too "bright", so I measured it with RCT and showed her what I was doing, luckily it was right where I left it and for some reason the unisons were great. She came to her own conclusion that they were used to it being flat and that they would have to get used to it being in tune. Finding the B in that mess just floored me!

  Mike

  Alan R. Barnard wrote: 
    Hmmmm, similar to a story I have for today.

    Hamilton studio in rural Baptist church: Came in for tuning and the person who let me in said he was asked to tell me to stop tuning the piano so high; said several inthe congregation had trouble singing the hymns and that 4 different pianists had declared that it was tuned too high.

    Wipped out my trusty iPAQ w/Tunelab and played A1, A2, A3, A4, and A5. They were all very nearly dead-on pitch (thank goodness) even though I hadn't tuned it yet today and it's been about a year since I did.

    Education is what you did and all you can do. I explained standard pitch, the need to maintain tension at spec, etc., and that I would charge double to lower the pitch even a half step.

    He understood and agreed. Hope he's persuasive. Accounts get lost over stupid stuff like this.

    BTW ANOTHER way that an ETD can be very useful -- as a marketing and education tool.

    Alan Barnard
    Salem, MO
    Joshua 24:15






----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Original message
    From: richard.ucci at att.net
    To: pianotech at ptg.org
    Received: 01/25/2007 4:52:38 PM
    Subject: argh!!


    Hi folks,
    Tuned a yamaha m-450 (new) a month ago, woman calls back two weeks later and says the piano sounds "twangy".
    I get there today and she says it's really the way it's playing that is the problem.
    Says hammers are striking twice, and I ask her to play something for me.
    She is playing sooo softly she is barely pressing the keys down, while using the sustain pedal as well.
    I explain what is meant to go on in the action, jack and escapement etc., "well... my old piano never did that".
    Piano is right on by Yamaha specs, and plays well (when played normally).
    I set the letoff at about 3-5mm from the strings and it improved the situation.
    Oh, she also wanted to know why the tenor dampers weren't in a straight line like all the others.(I wanted to scream).

    What would you guys do besides what I did to correct the problem?
    Rick Ucci/Ucci Piano 


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