When I was a boy we had over the years two different piano tuners; one when I was a child and the other as I grew up through my teens. Mr A and Mr B The piano, which had been my Granny's, had been very well played. It was about a semitone flat (I guess during and after the second world war there wasn't any spare money for getting the piano tuned). Neither of those full-time tuners EVER spoke about the piano being below concert pitch or suggested doing anything about it. When in my early 20s I asked the Mr B about the church piano which he also tuned being low, and what did he think of the idea of raising it, he said "I don't" and that was that. His cure for a creaking sustaining pedal leaf spring was to put a coin under the end of it (and he seemed to find it difficult to lift the end of the spring, using his tuning lever to lever it up - an uneccesarily cumbersome procedure. The hammers of our piano were well grooved (through endless practice for music exams by my Aunt) and the tone hard and thin, but this was never pointed out, nor any suggestion made about refacing. Musical friends of the family have a small 1930s grand and the damper felts were hard and ineffective, and they asked Mr B whether he could do anything about it, and he declined. (In later times I fitted new dampers felts). I don't think the tunings of either Mr A or Mr B were in any way distinguished, though perhaps it is not fair to make an assessment of things in the 60s and 70s when I was growing up. They were full-time tuners. I am a part-time tuner, and I always talk to customers about their piano - whether the pitch is low and if so what the options are, what work on hammers etc might improve the piano, and so forth. And my tunings are decent enough to please discerening local musicians. Best, David.
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