Tuner tunes

[Jim Coleman, Sr.]

Hi to all:

What should one play to demo the piano tuning upon completion? I used to 
like to play a bit of the Chopin C Maj "arpegio etude". I always play 
something which subliminally says "bring the checkbook". One day after 
playing the C Maj. the lady of the house entered and said: "Oh, do you 
play? I felt a little put down at the time, I thought I played pretty well,
but now that I think about it, maybe she had something else in mind. 
I'm kinda' slow to catch on sometimes. I think that's a good thing.

The other day I was playing "Ich Liebe Dich" by Grieg. It has some 
nice chord changes in it which make a well tuned piano sound great. 
I'm sure the men from Bergen know this song, Grieg was born there.
Two pop tunes come to mind: "The Man I Love" by Gershwin and "Laura" 
as sung by Frank Sonatra back in the 50's. Both have great chords.

Virgil Smith plays one of the Brahms Intermezzi. I think slow pieces 
are better for this purpose since you might miss a note or two on 
a really fast one.

Here's one which I found in a piano tuning instruction book many years ago.
Play a C octave with left hand and E, G, Bb in the right hand. As the bass 
changes downward by 3 separate half steps, raise the top note one half 
step at a time for 3 changes. Then raise the middle note for three half 
step changes as the Bass continues to go down by 3 more separate half 
steps. Then raise the lower note of the right hand a half step at a time 
for 3 changes. As the Bass keeps lowering by half steps, you can repeat 
the right hand changes starting over again with changes of the top note.
Keep doing this until you run out of keys and you will have checked out 
the whole piano.

Jim Coleman, Sr.