World's Worst Tuner

[Horace Greeley]

Les,

OK, so, I'm also a night owl.

I love it.  Tuning to records.

There used to be a tuning "school" that "graded" tapes of "tuning"
exercises sent in by
mail.  By the way, they also provided the tape recorder - batteries not
included.

Enough unequal temperament for the entire globe, I'm sure.

Actually, years ago I did watch one fellow tune.  Quite interesting.
Tuning hammer.  One rubber mute.  Started with A1 and went up.
I was positively entranced.  He collected his $15 from the store manager
and left.  I was on that piano like a cat on a bug.  Amazing.  It worked.
I've never seen anything like it before or since.  He "coulda been a
contenda".
As it was, he was a drunk.  Blew into town, tuned himself into and out of
a few bottles and then disappeared down the road 'til "next time".
Good, solid work.  Everyone always had him tune a few.

Ah, well.  Sort of up there with Bush and Lane pianos...

Good night, all.

Horace


At 04:20 AM 3/11/97 -0500, you wrote:
>It's 3:40 AM and you guys are still posting, so I thought "what the
>heck", I've got time for one more! The topic is the "World's Worst
>Tuner", or, at least the worst I ever heard. We've all seen our share
>of "cobbler" tunings, but never anything like this.
>
>I've known tuners who set their temperament octave by using a set of
>chromatic tuning forks and even one old-timer who did so by using a
>set of chromatic pitch-pipes, but the worst I ever saw or heard was
>the guy who tuned by phonograph record!
>
>I watched him tune a piano in a school in the early "60's. His tuning
>kit consisted of a tuning hammer, some mutes, a record player and a
>record. The record was  a recording of the pitches of all 88 notes on
>the piano. As the record played, he would try to match the string on the
>piano to what he was hearing. As I remember it, he  tuned the three
>strings of the unisons one at a time to the record, and never to each
>other and then just moved on to the next note. No checks were ever done
>and I can't remember him even checking the octaves. He went over the
>piano once, packed up his phonograph and record and moved on to the
>next piano in the school. He had been low-bidder on the contract. I
>just stood in amazement and watched him "tune", never before or since
>seeing anything like it. After he left, I went over and tried out the
>piano. It was my first introduction to the "Bad News Temperament" men-
>tioned in an earlier post.
>
>Years ago, on the inside of books of matches, they used to have an ad
>for a company that said "learn meat cutting at home" I always wondered
>how that worked. I imagine that the phonograph tuner must have seen a
>similar ad; something that said "Amaze people with your ability to im-
>mediately begin tuning pianos upon receipt of our record". They didn't
>lie. I WAS amazed. If he wasn't the world's WORST tuner, he certainly
>ranked in the top three! :-)
>
>4:05 AM--I'm outta here!
>
>Les Smith
>lessmith@buffnet.net
>
>
>
>
Horace Greeley

Stanford University
email: hgreeley@leland.stanford.edu
voice mail: 415.725.9062
LiNCS help line: 415.725.4627