Your story David, reminded me of 30 years ago when I was called to tune for
Ronnie Milsap for a downtown concert. He took his own piano with him. I
was there for the tuning at the pre-scheduled time, 1:00 PM only to be
informed that the piano was still about 3 hours away yet. The concert was
at 7 or 8 PM, I don't recall anymore, Ronnie wanted to also do sound checks
and practice on the piano. I almost walked out. In fact, I told the guy,
I'm not waiting here for 3 hours. He said, well, you have too!!! We want
YOU to do the tuning! That's why we called YOU! I smiled and said, okay.
but, I will be paid for my time standing here doing nothing plus the cost of
tuning and any other thing that may need adjusting on the piano. He said,
the manager won't be to happy about that. I said, I couldn't care less.
It's my time, not his. I'd rather walk away and go tune elsewhere than to
stand here waiting for 3 hours anyway. He said, wait... So, I waited, and
I waited. 4 hours later at 5 PM, the piano finally arrived. When it did, I
said, once that piano is set up, I'm tuning it whether you like it or not.
You can do your sound checks after that. I hour later, I finished tuning.
That's all the time they gave me. I gave them my bill for which I had
already requested payment on the spot for $150 for my standby time for 4
hours, plus my tuning fee. Yep, he was right, the manager complained
alright. I simply said, what would you have any other service man do? For
that matters, what have you paid all of these other people standing here
waiting for you to arrive? Are they standing here around for free? I
received total silence. I also received full payment. Of course, he asked
Ronnie how the tuning was (as if he would really know). He said marvelous.
I was called back in the following few years when he was still coming around
here but, from that time on, they made darn sure the piano was there BEFORE
I got there.
Jer
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of Michael Magness
Sent: Friday, January 08, 2010 6:00 PM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [pianotech] rock solid for how long?
On Thu, Jan 7, 2010 at 1:01 AM, David Nereson <da88ve at gmail.com> wrote:
Is "rock solid" really possible? And for how long? I have a client who
calls me every time a unison develops a slow roll. She must have a
super-sensitive ear. She does pay me to come over and touch-up a few notes,
but jeez, to get up, load up, drive over, touch up notes, pack up, & drive
back oughta be worth at least $50. I hate to charge that much each time,
and feel guilty that my tuning didn't stay perfectly solid. Sometimes it's
only been a few weeks. But even a former PTG brochure about tuning admitted
that no piano holds a tuning perfectly for more than 24 hours. Can't people
tolerate some slight out-of-tuneness for a few months? I can. It has to be
quite bad before I refuse to play it.
To me, it should be sorta like mowing the lawn. If it looks good when
you're done, great. No need to make sure each blade of grass is to the
nearest millimeter (like tuning to the nearest 10th of a cent), and if a few
blades grow faster than others in between mowings, so what? The lawn still
looks good as a whole. Just accept the longer blades of grass as a little
"flavor," variety, or "spice," and live with it until the next mowing.
If you're a Horowitz, that's different.
--David Nereson, RPT
I have to agree with Gerald, in situations such as you and the others
describe, it's not what or how much we do but rather the time we spend that
we could be elsewhere charging full rate! So why would you not charge full
rate in these instances?
A friend and mentor used to use the analogy that a tuning is like a haircut,
after the barber has finished cutting the right side and starts on the left,
the right side is already growing. After we have finished tuning half the
piano those unisons are already deteriorating, minutely to the point of
being indiscernible but nevertheless it's happening.
I have a college nearby that is the most prestigeous, musically, in town.
They called me to do their concert work last year beginning in August and by
October they stopped calling. They felt I should be grateful to be doing
their work, shouldn't charge a weekend rate for a Sunday morning tuning for
a faculty recital. I believe what convinced them I wasn't going to charge
less for the "prestige" of tuning for them was when I charged for the time I
waited for sound check for Jim Brickman, I was told 3:30, he wandered in at
5:35, rehearsed for over an hour, Curtain was at 7:30. My touch-up took 20
minutes, I had pre-tuned the day before.
I don't need that.
Mike
--
I intend to live forever. So far, so good.
Steven Wright
Michael Magness
Magness Piano Service
608-786-4404
www.IFixPianos.com
email mike at ifixpianos.com
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