<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; = charset=iso-8859-1"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2800.1400" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial; BACKGROUND-COLOR: = #ffffff" bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV><FONT size=3>Look, we get some of these from time to time. I had = one lady who said a buzz was driving her nuts. It occured on D#4 and E4 only, apparently.. After going and listening to it on hard, soft, and medium = blows I couldn't hear a buzz. I was starting to think my hearing was going bad. = Turns out what she was hearing was duplex noise.  I'll bet that your = customer was from the Orient, sometimes I think Asians go out of their way to find = things to worry about. Give an oriental lady a Baldwin, and she'll write you a = novel about how all the notes have different characteristics, you just do your best = voicing on the piano and when they start listening to differences in = individual notes you ask them, "Is that how you play the piano? I always thought = that you played the piano by playing more than one note at a time....."  = When they do that, of course, they don't notice the individual notes, but rather = how the whole piano sounds when played...</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>Just my two (some P.C.people would say racist) cents..</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>Kevin E. Ramsey, R.P.T.</FONT></DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; = BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV> <DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: = black"><B>From:</B> <A title=Topperpiano@aol.com href="mailto:Topperpiano@aol.com">Topperpiano@aol.com</A> </DIV> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A = title=pianotech@ptg.org href="mailto:pianotech@ptg.org">pianotech@ptg.org</A> </DIV> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Friday, February 06, 2004 = 6:05 PM</DIV> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Service call frustration?!?!?!?!?!?!</DIV> <DIV><BR></DIV>Just thought I'd vent on a most perplexing service call = today.  Last week I went to do a trouble shooting call for a = local dealer.  The customer, who is a very accomplished = pianist, had purchased a new very expensive piano.  The customer only spoke = very limited English.  Other than a few slightly wobbly unisons there = was nothing really wrong with the piano.  The piano had been nicely = prepped, was well regulated and voiced evenly.  Last week I spent over an = hour with the customer and could not discern one iota of what her complaint = could possibly be.  She would play a note several times and say = "sound." Then she would look at me as if to get assurance that I too heard the = offending problem.  Some of the notes that she objected to had the slightly = off unisons so I cleaned up the tuning.  This did not phase = her.  Finally I got some paper, took the fallboard off, pointed out the = numbers on the keys and made a chart and asked her to mark Like, Not Like on each = key, hoping to see some similarity in the likes and not likes.  I also = mentioned that if we could get someone who spoke English that it might = go better.  This week when I returned she indeed had a friend who = spoke much better English.  The chart was filled with remarks like "Not = beautiful, more exact, finish sooner, too over, etc.  After mUUUUUch = discussion with the friend I discovered that her main complaints were the undamped = high treble notes sustaining, some impact sounds of the hammer hitting the = string in the top octave, and the dampers in the bass not cutting off rapidly = enough on a very hard blow.  There was not one problem that did not = fall squarely in the range of normalcy.  I spent two hours trying to = explain that there no dampers in the high treble and that the dampers in the = bass were not under performing and I voiced three hammers in the top octave to = see if that would eliminate some offending sound.  I left feeling very unsuccessful with no idea whether or not the customer was = appeased.  She waived good-bye to me and had her friend tell me that she would call = the store and ask for me when she needed to have it tuned.  Oh Boy! TP </BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>