<HTML>List, I've been getting calls from people lately who have tuners already, but = for some reason or other, the customers are unsatisfied with the work their = techs have--or haven't--done.   The first was for a one year old Charles Walter console.  The lady = complained that the piano sounded dead above the treble break, "not like the= ones in the store."  Her tuner had been out there 8 months before. &nb= sp;I went out to see what was wrong, fearing major structural defects. &nbsp= ;What I found was a piano with a sluggish and powerless action that was 20-3= 0 cents flat.  Letoff was around an inch from the string, there was qui= te a bit of lost motion.   I pitch raised it, tuned it with a fair amount of stretch, got rid of th= e lost motion, proteked the keypins, regulated the let off, and voila! &nbsp= ;Power and clarity returned,  customer overjoyed in a few simple steps. And yesterday I went out to tune a 1981 S and S B.  The owner compl= ained of a treble that had gone really out of tune over the last couple of m= onths.  She contacted me because she was a friend of my next door neigh= bor. Yes, the unisons and some of the octaves had gone far south as expected,= but what really bothered me was the fact that the soundboard and the action= were really dusty, and it was in a very poor state of regulation.  I a= sked her if she'd ever considered having the piano regulated.  She said= that her technician had never brought it up.  I gave her the PTG regul= ation handout, and suggested that she mention it to her regular guy. I don't understand why well-established technicians would fail to addres= s these basic issues.  I didn't say anything negative about the techs t= o either customer; I don't know their reasons for not bringing up these main= tenance issues.  And I told the customers that I don't want to steal th= e regular clients of these guys.  In the end, though, they were both ha= ppy with the small bit of education I gave them about their pianos and with = the work I'd done.   I see this type of situation as a way to bring a piano closer to it's op= timum performance level--and make a fair chunk of change in the process. &nb= sp;Why on earth would anyone pass it up???   Dave Stahl </HTML>