[pianotech] tuning stability or the piano

[Larry Fisher RPT]

I’ve done plenty of house calls for free on this subject over the course of my 40 year career and I have a bit of an attitude as a result so take my words with that in mind. 

In more cases than not, the piano player doing the complaining wants a new piano and so the player beats up on the tuner for supposedly not doing a good job in hopes you’ll tell the school district or church that the piano needs to be replaced.

Another scenario that I’ve run into is the piano teacher that is promoting their favorite tuner by bashing any other technician’s work.  They may be getting a kick back from that tuner and so the more new clients they send in that tuner’s direction the more they make.

Yet another I can think of is the customer that feels if it’s not a Stienbrand or a Mason and Nameland piano it’s not playable no matter what you do.  After all, that’s the piano that they played on in their relative’s home as a child and it was always in perfect condition and gave them goose bumps of pleasure all over the place every time they played it.

Climate is a contributing factor to be sure.  Around here, January is typically the worst month to tune a piano although this year is the exception as near as I can tell.  Once that is ruled out consider the piano’s tuning history.   Once you’re ruled out all the uncontrollable factors, work on educating the client about the physical nature of the piano and it’s responses to proper care and environment.  As Del suggested, ALWAYS have the complaining customer on site when assessing the issue or don’t do the call.  When all this fails I’ve learned to not fret the process and just let the customer go their way  .........   what ever that ends up being.  In one case, a rather tenacious school teacher (called on a Sunday knowing I wouldn’t call back until Monday and by the time I called back, he’d already scheduled with someone else) ended up calling me back the following year after experiencing the work of a fellow technician.

Small things like looking sharp, having good manners and being punctual for your appointments helps to reduce lots of this sort of thing   ...... or at least that’s what it feels like.

Lar

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20120111/21c52f16/attachment.htm>