<HTML>In a message dated 1/10/02 12:50:36 PM Central Standard Time, gnewell@ameritech.net writes: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">Wim,    You apparently did not read my post. How unfortunate. If you did you would easily have noticed that I did not advocate at all that the customer should make sacrifices such as you mention merely to have the piano up to pitch. Tsk Tsk Wim. Very bad form. Greg </BLOCKQUOTE> Greg I did read your post, but after I sent this one out. I was referring to your comment on how great the piano sounds up to pitch. I agree. What I sense, not from you, but from some of the tuners, and I have had this expressed by some of my customers, that piano tuners are sometimes to adamant, too pushy, to insistent, that a piano be brought up to pitch, the hammers are shaped, the screws tightened, keys leveled, if not bushed, etc., before they can tune it. Some piano tuners have been known to brow beat the customer into spending money they don't have. Although, as Dale pointed out, it is not in our place to tell a customer how to spend their money, unfortunately, some customers feel embarrassed, or are not strong willed enough, to say no. These piano tuners, I feel, want to have the piano sound and play good for their own gratification, regardless of the customer's well being. Maybe I'm getting too emotional and sentimental about this. But I think we owe it to our customers to be more aware of their situation. I don't want our profession to get a reputation that we are sharks, with a used car salesman attitude, pushing our service on them like an insurance salesman. Wim </HTML>