Aural versus ETD tuning training

[David Love]

Here's an interesting story that relates to this somewhat.  I went to tune a
piano for a woman I have been working for for 15 years.  The piano hadn't
been tuned for over a year and when I got to it (Yamaha C7) I could find
only a small handful of unisons that weren't tight, just barely moving.  The
rest of the piano was dead on.  I went through the entire piano in about
10 - 15 minutes.  The tuning was so close that I asked her if she'd had it
tuned since I was there last.  She assured me that she hadn't.  I told her
that I couldn't find much that was out of tune, that the tuning had held up
surprisingly well.  I spent a bit of time touching up the voicing, told her
it really didn't need much, charged her my minimum fee (much less than my
standard tuning fee), thought I was doing her a favor by being honest about
it and left.  A year passes by and she doesn't respond to my reminder card,
so I call her up.  She says that the last time I was there she didn't
believe that the piano could not have been out of tune after that much time
(she's the sort who can't really tell though she plays well) and so she
called up someone else after I left to be sure.  That person is now working
for her.  Gee, I wonder what he told her?  Go figure.  No good deed goes
unpunished.  I think next time I'll just find something wrong whether it's
there or not.

David Love


----- Original Message -----
From: "Ron Nossaman" <RNossaman@cox.net>
To: "Pianotech" <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: December 26, 2002 12:39 PM
Subject: Re: Aural versus ETD tuning training


<snip>

 How long doesthat "perfect" tuning last anyway?  Couple hours?  Couple
days?

>David I.

I have - a couple of days. She called the evening of the afternoon it was
tuned, and I got her in as soon as I could. This has happened with both
aural, and ETD tuners. I can often tell who the last tuner was a year after
the last tuning by what remains. It's easier to do that with an aural
tuning, naturally.

I always found it much easier tuning when I follow (but not stalk) myself.
Otherwise, I have to re-train the darn thing.

Ron N

_______________________________________________
pianotech list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives