World's Worst Tuner

[Les Smith]

Way to go, Richard! We're proud of you!

A few years ago, I was called in to tune for a well-known artist,
whose name I won't mention. Her music director made a big deal
about what a great ear he had and insisted that the piano had to
be tuned to A-441. When he asked me if I could do so, I answered
"sure, no problem!"

The piano was an older Baldwin Concert grand that I had been tuning
maybe 25-30 times a year for over a decade. The piano and I knew
each other so well that it almost tuned itself. Anyway, when I was
finished Mr Hot-shot music director came over, pulled a little elec-
tronic gizmo out of his pocket and checked my A against it, He was
ecstatic when it read 441. He not only paid and tipped me for the
tuning in cash, but asked me to stay until intermission, so that I
could tune it again. Again I got paid for another full tuning, even
though it turned out to only about a twenty-minute touch-up.

Happy though the music director was with my tuning, there was one
thing he never knew.. I had tuned the piano to A-440 the way I always
did. Then, when I was finished, I went back to the A above middle C
and tweaked it up one CPS to A-441. Mr. Music Director with the "great"
ear never knew the difference! :-)

Les Smith
lessmith@buffnet.net



On Tue, 11 Mar 1997, Richard Moody wrote:

> Once I tuned for a rental agency.  One of the fellows called up and
> asked if I had a  D tuning fork.
> "No", I said, "What the heck do you need a D fork for?"
> -"This guy wants to know if you can tune to  D."
> "I don't understand, I tune to the  A fork, that's what everyone
> tunes to these days, although there is a C fork, but I have never
> heard of using a D fork"
> "Well, he asked me if our tuner could de-tune a piano."
> "Oh you mean he wants an out of tune piano"
> I then heard laughter in the back ground, and realized that the
> speaker phone was on, and I had been set up once again.
>  So if someone ever wants you to D-tune a piano ask them they want it
> to be flat or to be sharp.
> Richard Gotpaidtobebad
>
> ps The agency  actually did  have  a customer that  wanted to rent an
> out of tune piano.  For a coffee comercial I heard.    I dropped one
> string in a few unisons, they called the client and he listened to it
> over the phone and said that was exactly what he wanted, and was glad
> it would cost no more than a regular tuning and understood they
> should pay for the retune also.  I tweeked the rest of the unisons
> and got paid for a full tuning in 10 minutes.
>
>