Potential Customers

[Farrell]

Just another twist on a piano owner's ability to sense if a piano is out of tune: I tuned a 10-year old Young Chang medium sized grand a little while back. The owner was in her 60s and lived in an affluent community right on the golf course. It was June. In Florida. No AC. All windows open. Kinda nice, but a bit warm and humid. Strings on piano were REAL, REAL rusty! 

Anyway, piano was WAY out of tune. I think I did a small pitch raise and gave it a pretty darn decent tuning. I had noticed tons of Beethoven, Bach, Chopin and the like on the piano when I got there, so I was wanting her to sit down and play so that I could watch her eyes pop out of her head when she played her well-tuned piano. 

She sits down and plays some stuff very, very nicely. Pretty decent piano player. After a few minutes I ask her what she thinks (It didn't seem as though she was going to say anything). She said: "Well, I guess it sounds fine. I don't really notice any difference. I hadn't really noticed that it was so bad before." She did add that she believed me that the piano was way out of tune.

What are you going to do? I've even run across piano teachers that are right in this same ballpark.

Terry Farrell
  
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <RCzekay@AOL.COM>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Saturday, August 31, 2002 9:38 PM
Subject: Re: Potential Customers


> There are many different types of piano owners. There are some that are true 
> students of the piano, and play for their own enjoyment, and others, who just 
> want a piece of furniture to decorate their living room. Therefore, the 
> students naturally want theirs to be kept in tune, while the others couldn't 
> care less. I remember a client that called me for a service call a few years 
> ago, to fix a sticking key. When I got there, and went over the piano, it was 
> so badly out of tune that it hurt my ears. I fixed the problem, and then 
> asked her when was the last time she had her piano tuned. She stated that not 
> since she bought it 30 years ago, but that it sounded good to her, and she 
> has a good ear!! I collected my fee for easing her sticking key, and left, 
> knowing that she would not want to pay for 3 or more pitch raisings to 
> stabilize her piano.
> 
> So, like beauty is all in the eyes of the beholder, sound is also in the ears 
> of the listener. When tuning, what may sound real good to you, might not 
> sound good to the client. It just seems that some people like the sound of 
> wild unisons, and when they are cleaned up they seem to think that it just 
> doesn't sound right anymore. This pertains to 95% of the piano owners, and 
> not the 5% of the ones that are serious musicians.
> 
> Try as we may, we as piano tuner-techs, will never be able to please 
> everyone.
> 
> Just a few of my thoughts,
> 
> Roy Czekay
> 
> Milwaukee, WI
>