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You can't afford to identify too emotionally with the customer
here. When you want to do more than you can, they wonder why you
don't. If you are kind but firm about the situation, they put the
blame where it belongs ( not on you ).<br><br>
Andrew Anderson<br><br>
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At 10:17 PM 12/3/2007, you wrote:<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""><font size=2>I tuned (no I
really didn't) for "Dennis" today- and old Howard (sn 220***-
for which I didn't find a reasonable match in Pierce's). The retired
engineer had married a Russian lady, young enough to be his daughter- and
nicely I made that mistake. Bass strings were dead, multiple bridge
cracks, the strings painted gold, several replaced, about six pins in the
center where a tiny amount of counterclockwise pressure sent the string a
half or whole tone flat. They also popped loudly when they let loose-
like Baldwin, only it was virtually no useful tension on the pin.
There were a couple pins up around note 80 which were the same way.
Hammer 88 was within 1mm of having the felt open up at the bottom
of the grooves on the flat-topped hammers. Problem was, the man had
bought this as a birthday present for this wife who is a HIGH level
concert player while she was out of the country.
I was there over four hours, so mad that they guy had gotten screwed (I
believe the damage was done before prior owner sold it to him- she wasn't
a player, so bought it mostly as furniture), and that I couldn't make a
decent tuning. The Russian asked if I had ever tuned a piano like
this before
. I pulled the
action and went through everything with him, and he seemed more than
satisfied that little if anything could be done- but the wife- I think
she wanted me dead. <br>
</font><br>
<font size=2>When and HOW does one just give up on a POS when nothing
works? This really bothered me. I've tuned Howards before and
hated them, but got them tuned. Nothing rendered decently, nothing
stayed stable for me. I've never had anything quite like this
before, and hope I never do again.<br>
</font><br>
<font size=2>They can't afford another piano, though their house was
probably valued at twice mine, and they had two rather new cars (Honda an
Buick) I think. I'm coming off a week of
three Houston Symphony Tunings, another major Hall, two tunings of the
most expensive piano in town, and directing two performances of the opera
Amahl and the Night Visitors. I know I was tired
But
I had just done quite ok on a Petrof for one of my really persnickety
customers, so I haven't completely lost my "tuning mind".
I'm mad they got screwed, mad she can't play musically on this pos, but
still feel somehow I should have been able to do something to make it
work. Sorry to be kind of nuts here, but I'm feeling kind of
lost.<br>
</font><br>
<font size=2>les bartlett</font> </blockquote></body>
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