<br><br> <div class="gmail_quote">On Dec 3, 2007 10:17 PM, Leslie Bartlett <<a href="mailto:l-bartlett@sbcglobal.net">l-bartlett@sbcglobal.net</a>> wrote:<br> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid"> <div> <p><font face="Arial" 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.  </font></p> <p><font face="Arial" 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. </font></p> <p><font face="Arial" 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. </font></p> <p><font face="Arial" size="2">les bartlett</font> </p></div></blockquote></div> <div><br>Hi Les,</div> <div> </div> <div>It's that time of year, you hear about everyone being nice and good and helpful then you run into this piece of c__p and get to be the bearer of bad news!</div> <div>Except I doubt that you were, the bearer of the bad news, completely anyway. If she is anywhere near the pianist you say she is, she was well aware of </div> <div>much of what you were going to tell them before you got there! She just needed you to convince him! I don't think she wanted you dead, him maybe, not you! </div> <div>I don't want to sound heartless but this guy kind of asked for it when he bought it without having it checked out, you'd think at his age in his profession he </div> <div>would know better! </div> <div> </div> <div>I have a couple of customers that have done this, saw the ad for that $500 grand piano on Saturday morning and rushed out and bought it. </div> <div>I call them million dollar grands, I'll probably make a million bucks keeping these PSO's together until they are ready to give up on them! <grin> </div> <div>One is an Apollo, an ex-player piano grand when I go to tune it, I schedule an extra couple of hours for the other things that will inevitibly come up.</div> <div>Of course these are student pianos or retireds who play for their own amusement so their standards aren't that high. I also had a woman call me </div> <div>to tune the 10 year old used Baldwin console she had bought from a private party. I arrived and it was immaculate, a cherry finish without a scratch,</div> <div>very flat as I checked down the keyboard I noticed a rattle, no it wasn't the pedal rods, definetly sounding board. I moved it out from the wall, the </div> <div>sounding board had multiple cracks, about a dozen in all. I was told the previous owners had never had it tuned, they just placed it next to the fireplace, </div> <div>because it looked nice there and ploished it regularly! I spent 8 hours fixing that soundboard!</div> <div> </div> <div>The simple answer to your question of when and how does one give up on a PSO when nothing works? ASAP! Find the worst example of each point you</div> <div> want to make about why this is really just a stack of firewood masquerading as a piano(yes, I have used that very sentence to customers)and demonstrate </div> <div>your reasons! When they look at you and say but can't you just......... Look them right in the eye and say to them no I can't, I am not a thief, I am a piano </div> <div>technician(Yes, I have also used that sentence to customers).</div> <div>I collect my fee for my time, usually just a service call, suggest they call me if they find another piano and want it looked at and make my exit.</div> <div> </div> <div>We all get screwed every day, one way or another and I don't see too many others getting upset about it on my behalf. So I try to take my customers </div> <div>getting screwed as another symptom of life in America. It's not as if the information isn't available, online, at the library or from their friendly piano technician. </div> <div> </div> <div>So who should you be mad at, the person who sold it, probably unwittingly, the guy who bought it who should have done his homework first or the situation</div> <div>you were put in trying to explain it all? Haven't we all heard buyer beware?</div> <div>You have no fault here Les, you're just the messenger but that somehow leaves you with a guilty feeling, like you should have been able to improve it </div> <div>somehow. I know that feeling I've been there but that's the problem, sometimes there just isn't any room for improvement then it's time for that </div> <div>piano bonfire! <big grin> </div> <div> </div> <div>Mike<br clear="all"><br>-- <br>The real trouble with reality is that there's no background music.<br>Michael Magness<br>Magness Piano Service<br>608-786-4404<br><a href="http://www.IFixPianos.com">www.IFixPianos.com </a><br>email <a href="mailto:mike@ifixpianos.com">mike@ifixpianos.com</a> </div>