<HTML>In a message dated 3/17/01 10:43:38 AM Central Standard Time, LHSBAND440@AOL.COM writes: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">The bad news is that this is soon to be the future of the piano tuning industry.  With ETD's becoming more and more accurate, the common piano player will be able to tune a piano to the same accuracy of a good piano tuner. </BLOCKQUOTE> LOL.  As Bobby McFarrin (a musician I went to school with and worked with in my teens and early 20's) wrote, "Don't worry, be happy".  And as Jim RPT says, "It ain't gonna happen".  What the guy who wrote that "paper" doesn't know about piano service would fill an entire bookshelf. "Accurate" Electronic Tuning Devices (ETD) have been around for ages.  Even now, with the kind that you hook up to a laptop computer and all, the never ending discussion about how *best* to tune a piano continues.  There are no books or ETD's which describe or permit anyone who doesn't know what I know to tune the piano the way I do. For that reason, people call me because of the very special way I handle their pianos (which is not at all limited to tuning).  None of the people I have or ever will work for would ever even think of trying to do the work I do themselves. The skills and work output it requires to do this work are not compatible with playing fine music.  Being a fine musician requires practice on an instrument which is well prepared.  Yes, it's true that a really good piano tuning (regulation and voicing too) don't last long.  Neither does an oil change, a car wash, a house cleaning, a window washing, a lawn mowing, a snow plowing, etc...   A fine musician is not going to change his own oil, wash his own car, etc. because his/her time is better spent practicing the finer art.  The use of muscle groups doing these other activities may well interfere with musicianship.  Have you ever noticed that there are relatively few piano technicians who are very good at what they do who are also extraordinarily good pianists? Good piano service can only be performed by a very well trained person of many years experience.  No ETD is going to change that.  The most they can do is help the skilled practitioner be more consistent and produce higher quality work quicker with less stress.  Most technicians who write on this list would have 2, 3 or 4 pianos done with much better results in the time this fool with his "revolutionary" ETD would take to mess up a piano badly enough that any serious musician wouldn't have it. Happy Saint Patrick's Day.  Have some green beer and keep on doing what you're doing come Monday morning.  The pianos will still be waiting for your attention then and every year thereafter in which you still wish to continue working, electronic keyboards and ETD's notwithstanding. Bill Bremmer RPT Madison, Wisconsin</HTML>