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<DIV>I got a call from a very nice lady to tune her early 1900's Steinway "O"
that she purchased from a local piano dealer about a year ago. It needed "a
little more" than tuning. The soundboard, pin block, and re-stringing were all
very satisfactory, but thanks to the neglect and sloppiness of the dealer that
rebuilt the piano, all of the front and balance rail punchings were the
ORIGINALS, the hammers were new but most of them were hitting only 2 out of 3
strings with many of the shanks twisted in the wrong direction, the
sustaining pedal was noisy and binding and never worked right -- even
though the store sent their technicians a couple of times (the last "technician"
told her that it was her imagination!), a bass damper sat about 1/2 inch off its
strings, some dampers hardly moved when the note was played and many had to be
regulated into the right position, there was a broken jack, a stripped out
rep. rail hole, the drop and letoff were way off in many notes, and the
string height was very uneven for many unisons causing some bad buzzing and
voicing problems. How could any dealer in his right mind even THINK of
selling a classic, fabulous Steinway grand with the action needing hours of
work? Are people so money hungry that they throw all sense of accomplishment,
artistry, and perfection out the window? Where is the pride in turning a
classic Steinway into a dream of an instrument? What this dealer did was like
restoring a beautiful Rolls Royce to mint condition, but leaving a huge dent in
the fender. It makes no sense. I wonder how many other technicians have had
similar experiences. I've seen a lot of wonderful work out there over the years,
work that would satisfy the most demanding concert pianists, but I've
seen THIS sort of thing time and time again and it always gets me angry
frustrated. Can anyone out there relate to this?</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Jesse Gitnik</DIV>
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