Pitch raising

[Ron Nossaman]

> What would have happened if she had permitted me
>to raise it right away?  Broken strings all over the place, I reckon.

Nope. What would have happened is this. When strings started breaking, you
would have had the good sense to back it down and tune it at a lower pitch.
Approaching it the way you did was quite reasonable under the
circumstances, since you weren't given other options by the customer or the
condition of the piano. Under better circumstances, defined as the desire
to get the piano to standard pitch (whatever the heck that happens to be
this week), with the customer willing to pay for it, and a piano that
doesn't have the remains of long extinct insect species fossilized in it's
internal dust layers, it makes more sense to just pull it up and go. Like
most things, there is the need for occasional rational thought here, rather
than a hard and fast RULE.     



>     I don't see this as an ethical question.  

Me either. It's a technical concern, complicated by a political one.


> I'm getting paid for what I do, we're both happy, 
>and the
>piano is closer to pitch than it's been in decades.

The only thing I might quibble with here is whether 50 cents flat is really
better than 100 cents flat. In this case, since no pitch raise was charged,
it's not an issue. When I can't get a piano to 440 with the pitch raise and
have to fall back, I don't charge them for the attempt, though I have
declined to make the attempt when I don't think the piano will take it. I
have no idea what other tuners do about this. When it does work, I charge a
set fee for the pitch raise, regardless of amplitude. 


Ron N