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[Leslie Bartlett]

We had been invited to dinner the other evening, at which dinner was a
fellow piano technician who made the following comment, "There is no
reasonable justification for any tuner not to use an ETD in the 21st
Century."   It's Labor Day,and since there are no pianos to tune and my body
isn't laboring, suddenly a couple troublesome brain cells began to stir up
trouble.....     Strange thing is, this guy has TWO master of music degrees,
the second a double piano/piano technology degree obtained on full
scholarship at a rather prestigous university at which his eldest son was at
the same time on full scholarship as a violin performance major. His wife, a
concert level pianist, chosen best music teacher in the city a couple years
ago, youngest son at 20 making it as a concert pianist.....       So, one
can either assume, according to this very opinionated toooner that the art
of tuning is dead, or that science has managed to enable some of us lesser
persons to approach artful tunings.

This hit me recently at a church at which the pianist was very unhappy, and
asked me to tell her why she hated a perfectly (seemingly) good Steinway
piano.  Basically the tuning was awful.....  I used my Tunelab to redo it,
and she suddenly was happy.  I was slated to tune a month later and the
former tuner had heard about it, and retuned it.  I checked it with my "gold
standard", and BEHOLD it was dead on at every point.   Pianist said to me,
"I know he has an ETD, but has refused to use it heretofore. He must have
brought it out."    Indeed...........

That brings me to a second point (hop in here Diane Hofstetter)...   The
gentleman is elderly, and it was obvious from my experience that he, an
aural tuner, was relying on diminished hearing.   Since I am using hearing
aids I have some experience with this.   Not only was the thing way out of
tune, it was very much too bright, but the elderly gentleman tuner said,
"NO!  It sounds just perfect."   Technology is available to not only make
the lives of tuners easier, but in many cases enable some us to continue
meaningful careers when otherwise we would be losing customers left and
right.        This is almost a plea to find a COMPETENT audiological
specialist and get hearing checked.   Diane now can sell hearing aids, and
will likely be selling wares at conventions, and she knows the special needs
of our niche. MOST audiologist do NOT- as was the case with mine until I
showed her specifically what our special needs are.   She has now also
enabled a lady whose voice sounded just awful, to discover that she is
actually a rather talented dramatic soprano, but could not sing because of a
life long hearing defect. That, again thanks to Gloria Nemeroff, has largely
been eradicated (limited only by the lesser level of her previously chosen
hearing aids).  

les bartlett
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