New kid on the block

[SooperTooner@AOL.COM]

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Hi all. I'm a "newbie" at this. I've tuned 17 pianos in the last 3 months so 
am a little past getting my feet wet now. I think I've found a different way 
to tune pianos and the people I've tuned for say it sounds good. I was 
watching the tuner work on our BIG grand piano (not a baby grand for sure!!!) 
at church and after he was done I went home and got my cassette recorder. 
It's a good one, Japanese made I think but way better than Radio Shack. 
Anyway I started at the left side of the piano, yelled "Number ONE...Number 
TWO...etc" into the microphone and recorded each note all the way up to the 
furthest one on the right. (I'm not a musician so I'm not sure what the names 
of the notes are.) Pretty neat, huh. The way I figure it, now I've got a 
recording of a tuning by a professional tuner on a BIG grand piano so I'd say 
that I've got a pretty good "template" to base MY tunings on now. Like I 
said, the people I've tuned for liked the way their pianos sounded.

We have another piano downstairs in the Sunday school so to try out my tuning 
method I opened her up,  played the first sound on the tape and used a small 
socket wrench and yanked on the black pegs until they sounded like the note 
on the tape. Then I went to #2 and so on. That worked until I got to about 
7-8 notes and then there were TWO wires on each note. That got a little 
tricky! But NOT as tricky as further along where the wires got really skinny 
and there were THREE of them at a time. Oh Boy!! I thought. What am I in for 
now? Well it took longer than I thought (about 7 hours) but I got through 
that rascal. Now (after 17 pianos) I'm down to about 20 minutes. Experience 
sure does count for something.

Has anyone else tried this method? I'd be willing to talk anyone through it 
that's interested. Hell, we're all in this together aren't we? One hand 
washes the other. I believe that trade secrets like this one should be shared 
for the benefit of all people so I've got nothing to hide. Who knows, you 
might know something and be able to help me sometime.

I do have one question. When it took me 7 hours I charged the customer $20. 
Now that it takes me 20 minutes do you think it's fair to STILL charge $20 or 
should I be charging  $1.00 ( Roughly $20 divided by 21)? Any suggestions 
greatly appreciated.

That's all for now. It's nice to have others to swap ideas and stories with. 
I've always been a team player.

Next time I'll tell you all how my repair went on some broken plastic (or 
nylon) things in a piano called a "Betsy Ross". Isn't that a stupid name for 
a piano? Next there'll be an "Opray Winfrey" piano. It was a real nice one 
though. I repaired the parts with pieces of Rigatoni pasta but don't want to 
"spill the Fagioli" until I see if it works or not. Stay tuned!!! More next 
time.

Douglas Vitreous


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