Where oh where is the pitch??from Canada--AAA

[J Patrick Draine]

Dave Renaud wrote:

>      This morning I get a call to re-tune for tonight's concert,
>because the piano was  "15 cents flat and sounded terrible".
>
>     They had in 7 brass players who have been playing for
>two years, grade school 7-8 to play with the choir. The school
>music teacher tuned them "exactly" to his machine at 440.
>and when they played with the piano it sounded extremely
>flat. He assures me the machine was calibrated to 440.
>     He then checked the piano with the machine, it reported
>the piano 15 cents flat.
>     I've checked my two forks they are both OK.

>
>                                         Dave Renaud
>                                         RPT

I had a similar senario a couple of years ago. I was called in at the last
minute because the music teacher "discovered" that the piano was 30c flat,
despite the "regular" tuner's assertion that he had tuned it to A440. Well,
the treble sections were noticably flat, but the A4 and the bass & tenor
were tuned to standard pitch. After explaining this to him he discovered
the pitch offset adjustment was set flat on his machine (I forget what
brand ). I tuned the treble section and raised the hammer line enough to
achieve letoff. He was outraged that I charged more than his regular tuner,
and the school took 5 months to cut a check.
I had the same thing happen after tuning a customer's piano; a couple days
later they played along with their son's digital keyboard. They were
convinced "it was me"; I went back, showed them the pitch offset switch,
and turned it back to A440.
So I doubt it's the machine's inaccuracy, but rather that a pitch offset
control has inadvertently been activated.

Patrick Draine, RPT
Billerica, MA