I wish to raise a point...

[PDtek@aol.com]

In a message dated 2/18/98 3:07:52 AM, you wrote:

>  If the piano is too bad in
>the rust dept. I sell a restring if possible.  I feel we should not just
leave
>them all where we find them.  
>
>Ed Tomlinson
>
><< On old uprights, I don't even find out where the pitch is. I tune it where
>it
> is, because of the problems you indicated, brittel strings, weak bridges,
> rustry strings. etc. If the piano happens to be on pitch, it is a plus, but
I
> don't attempt to raise it much. 
> 
> Willem Blees  RPT >>

I occupy the middle ground in these situations. I'm all for bringing up the
pitch of an old upright if after examination (1.) It looks like it can take
the procedure without damage past a broken string or two and (2.) If it is
important to the customer to have the piano at A-440. I would never tune a
piano low without first discussing with the customer all the pros and cons and
letting them make  the decision. Many are perfectly happy to just have the
piano in tune with itself, especially when it saves them the considerable
expense of forcing an old beast up to a pitch it hasn't seen in decades,
leaving them with an unstable tuning, several new strings that are going to
immediatley stretch flat, etc., etc.

Please don't get me wrong, tuning at any pitch other than standard is not
something I like to do, and will go to great lengths to talk the owner of any
decent piano out of, but the bottom line is that we are tuning for an
individual customer, not for ourselves and not for other tuners. The reason
that most people own these pianos is because they either don't have the money
for anything better or it's just not a big priority. All they know is that
after a non-standard tuning the piano sounds good, they didn't have to strain
their budget, and if you hadn't told them it was low, they would never have
known. In other words, they're happy. Whos going to argue with that?

Dave Bunch