no charge to good steady customers

[Conrad Hoffsommer]

Clyde, my friend,

At 07:29 10/8/2003 -0400, you wrote:
>Phil and others,
>I do question how you could conclude in five minutes that all the unisons, 
>3rds, 4ths, 5ths, 8vas, etc. were spot on.


First, assume that you did the previous tuning and that everything was spot 
on when you left it.  ;-}

Two hands, three octave span, four notes, - start with middle C as the 
bottom of the four and play triple octaves chromatically to the top. Then 
start with C52 (C5) as the top, go down to the bottom.

You have played all keys on the piano and overlapped in the middle, and I 
guarantee that if _anything_ drifted out, those bare triple octaves will 
show them up.

If you have some fuzziness, then go in and investigate what is causing it - 
that can take time, but that "go/no go" test is less than a minute.

Checking all unisons individually? couple of minutes, longer if fuzz is 
false beats.


>  Are you sure?  If so, what could cause the piano NOT to be spot on six 
> months from now?

Mucho stuff, but you are there _now_.  Let tomorrow take care of itself.


>If pianos are tuned regularly enough, do some of them reach the point 
>where they are permanently in tune?

I tune 4 concert grands every week, and a couple of them usually need very 
little,  but permanent???  Dr Pangloss, are you listening?


>  I sometimes equate piano tuning with other maintenance-type 
> procedures.  I think that any time maintenance is recommended after a 
> certain period of time, or a certain amount of use, there is the question 
> of whether this is necessary, and maybe sometimes it isn't.  Has any one 
> of you ever requested normal maintenance and then the serviceperson said 
> you didn't need it?

Yes.


>I use RCT, and I've long suspected that it is "pickier" than the human ear is.

Soitenly! I'd never have guessed that yesterday's Samick's A4 was at 
428.98Hz, but I knew immediately that it needed tuning.


>   I've never done only an aural check on arriving and making a decision 
> at that point.  I want to *keep* the piano sounding good, not wait until 
> it starts to sound out of tune and then fix it.  I still check every 
> string, trying the unisons to see if I can get them any cleaner (often I 
> can't due to false beats), so even my short jobs take about forty minutes.


Warning: College tech mentality coming through here...  If it ain't broke, 
don't fix it.  If it needs something, quickly find out exactly what, do it 
and move on.

YMMV



Conrad Hoffsommer, Decorah, IA
Household Hint: A set mouse trap placed on top on of your alarm clock
  will prevent you from rolling over and going back to sleep.