You're up at 8:00 am on a Sat. morning and you're looking forward to a well deserved day off. Your cell phone rings and you answer with enthusiasm thinking you're going to get a new client. However, it's your customer from last Tuesday calling to tell you the piano is out of tune and can you come right over and "fix it?" Politely, without looking at your schedule you say. "Yes, I can squeeze you in sometime during the day on Monday.".... The client says "That won't work, were having a party today with 400 people and a professional piano player. Can you come any time before 4pm?" In a split second a ton of excuses run through your head. "I have other plans" "My kids have a softball game" "I have to go to the doctor" "My car's in the shop" etc... all of them not true, you reluctantly reply, " Ill be there within the hour". You put the phone down thinking...there goes my day off, I really didn't want to go out and tune today, how could I be so dumb to let the client talk me into going???
So, you grab a cup of coffee and head out the door for the 30 minute drive wishing you hadn't answered your phone, and even though your heart's not in it, you convince yourself to make the best of it. Arriving at the customers home the place is a mad house with workers setting up tents and caterers and wait staff running around making tons of noise.We'll, you think to yourself, I'm here, I might as well make the best of it and re-tune the entire piano.
Despite the noise, carefully and diligently you go over the whole piano, note by note, string by string skipping nothing, But, you find the piano to be in good tune and the tuning is over within a half hour...As you're packing up your tools, your customer appears thanking you repeatedly for coming on such short notice and introduces you the piano player, who happens to be the clients nephew and a professional pianist from the NY Philharmonic.The pianist sits at the piano and lets loose a forte and crescendo that rattles the foundation of the house. The pianist finishes in a pianissimo, smiles and says "Good to go, nice job, the piano sounds prefect."
My customer then turns to me and says "Do you install Dampp-Chasers?" "Yes" I reply. "Call me next week and make an appointment to put one in my piano. My nephew said the piano could have gone slightly out of tune because I don't have a climate control system." Driving home you think to yourself, wow, what a valuable lesson, had I refused to go I would have lost a good client and a Dampp-chaser install...
Tom Lotito ThomasLotitoPianos.com PO Box 70 Schooleys Mountain NJ 07870 908-204-9100 tom@thomaslotitopianos.com
Despite the noise, carefully and diligently you go over the whole piano, note by note, string by string skipping nothing, But, you find the piano to be in good tune and the tuning is over within a half hour...Wow so fast-
ReplyDeletePiano Appraisals AB-
Hi Milliscent, Speed in tuning comes with experience.
ReplyDeleteThe piano mentioned above is a 6ft Kimball grand and the pitch was very close to A=440 when I first tuned the piano.The piano was tuned 4 days earlier which took over an hour, which made the second tuning less work.
Early on, I got a lot of experience tuning when I worked for a chain piano & organ store that had 7 retail outlets and two warehouses full of pianos.I tuned a minimum of 5 pianos a day and on some days as many as 10.
This lead to acquiring a lot of experience with every almost every piano tuning technique that is taught today. Including; experimenting with pitch raises, electronic tuning devices, different temperaments. I can tune an F temperament two A temperaments and a C temperament.
Here's a tip that will help you speed tune. Try tuning a piano twice in one tuning. I literally run through the piano on the first tuning in about 1/2 hour. On The second tuning, I refine the first tuning. I get a very clear sounding piano with this technique.
When it comes to achieving the optimum performance level in a piano I feel it best to repeat the process, whether it's tuning or regulation.