World's Worst Tuner

[Horace Greeley]

Les,

Does this qualify as an unequal temperament?

Best.

Horace



>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.
>>
>>




Horace Greeley			hgreeley@leland.stanford.edu

	"Always forgive your enemies,
		nothing annoys them so much.

			-	Oscar Wilde

LiNCS				voice: 725-4627
Stanford University		fax: 725-9942