<HTML><HTML>Greeetings,              Thi= s may sound simplistic, but when I approach a piano to tune, I first play an= d listen to the piano's unisons to see how "wavy" they are. Then I play chor= ds in octaves, for exmple c-e-g in the lower register and play them all the = way up to the top, and then a few more chords, like a-c#-e, and e-g#-b.             &nbs= p; This way I am aurally "measuring" or geting a sense of what the player is= used to hearing as far as octaves go. In my mind, its sort of listening for= octave "matching". In other words, how stretched the octaves are in the fir= st place. If I find that the top octaves sound really flat, and unbearable t= o my ear, I'll end up stretching them a bit.              &nbs= p; Just about always, the customer is pleased. Sometimes if one tunes too dr= astically from what was there (aside from cleaner unisons) and the customer = isn't used to the change they may not like the tuning. I believe my "method"= sort of plays it safe. Classical players like theirs stretched more than th= e youngster just learning. To other players, it just doesn't matter. I alway= s stretch octaves, always. How much just depends on what was there to begin = with and who is playing that piano.             &nbs= p;  I've been tuning for alittle over a year though, I cannot say wethe= r this is a tried and true approach as far as keeping customers. All = I know is that they tell me that it sounds so much better, and thank me besi= des paying me. In this first year, I only ever had one young lady call me an= d say her top octave sounded flat. She was a teacher and a classical player,= and wanted the top octave really stretched, so I went back and stretched it= more, and she was happy.  Julia Gottchall, Reading, PA</HTML>