<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en"> <html> Dave, Contrary to several other responses, I don't like to see the customers fiddling with tuning. I can only recall running into this situation one time.  The guy with his own tuning lever had broken several strings.  About two weeks after I repaired and tuned the piano, he called me and said several notes were bad and expected me to come tune them up again for free.  No, they weren't the new strings.  I asked if he had tried to improve my tuning.  First he denied it and insisted that I believe him.  Then he said he tuned only one string.  Yeah, right!  He was also combative. I can see where there may be some instances in which it might be okay for the customer to have their own lever.  I'll think about it (but not much).  :-) Regards, Clyde Hollinger Piannaman@aol.com wrote: <blockquote TYPE=CITE>Hi all, I sent a post a couple of weeks ago about going out to tune a piano for a gentleman who had attempted to tune his own instrument.  He was actually a very nice guy, and played the piano quite well, and because he had a pretty muusical ear, he thought it would be a piece o' cake. I got a call back from him yesterday telling me what a great job I did, and how "in tune" the piano sounds.  That kind of phone call is always nice to get.  But it got me to thinking...was it because he had attempted to achieve a good tuning on his own that he appreciated the work of a professional tuner? Maybe some of our less appreciative customers should be given a tuning hammer and allowed to try their luck.  Anybody else ever have this experience? Dave Stahl</blockquote> </html>