I was a professional pianist before I became a tuner. I still do a lot of accompanying and playing for parties if I can fit it in. I would say that it is definitely a plus, in that you know what you ought to demand from an instrument. But -- and this is only me -- I do have an off switch, probably developed from years of playing for shows on awful instruments. While playing, or while listening to a recording or a recital, my mind switches to music mode, not tuning. This is a survival tactic! However, there is one exception. If I have tuned the piano in question, all I hear is whether it's in tune or not. One of the most agonizing things in my life is to sit through a recital for which I prepared the piano. I squirm and fidget to the point where my wife tries to look as if she never met me. Once my family and I were at a recital where a John Cage piece was played on a mostly muffled and otherwise prepared piano. My then 10-year-old daughter turned to me and said, "I thought you were supposed to fix those things." Actually, that was an easy recital for me, because once the piano gets prepared, I figure the the tuning is almost unrecognizable anyway. The other advantage is, after you are done tuning and you play something flashy that shows off the piano, 90 times out of 100 people will say the tuning is great just because you've played it well, and they'll never question things further. It's those other 10 customers who keep you honest. Mark Graham, Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory of Music
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