World's Worst Tuner

[Susan Kline]

I've got one, too, Les. I followed his work a few years ago. The owner
complained that the piano was worse instead of better, the whole treble was
grossly flat, and the unisons were certainly godawful. So I started asking
questions.

He had used a "tuning machine", probably an earlier model. She thought he
had picked it up at a yard sale. He used it without stretch. He said that
everybody tuned the upper half of the piano too sharp: the machine said so.
He had a lot fewer tools than I was using. I looked at my modest collection
of tuning lever, muting strip, tuning fork, paps mute and rubber wedge, and
asked what he was doing without. "Oh, the felt, and the rubber thing and the
plastic thing."

I asked her if she had complained about the tuning, and what he had said. "I
hadn't the heart," she said. "He had worked so hard and was so proud of it."

She gave me his card. It said he was a piano tuner and an expert watchmaker.
I thought I'd keep my watch at home. :-)


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
>
>
>
>

Susan Kline, R.P.T.
skline@proaxis.com
P.O. Box 1651,
Philomath, OR 97370
(541) 929-3971