Tuning Notes

[Barbara Richmond]

>I tuned two pianos for a music school last year, one quality and the other
>a worn out dead sounding look alike. Some weeks later they complained how
>terrible the old one sounded. I went back and they explained it sounded
>terrible right after I tuned it while the other was great. In an attempt to
>keep a client happy and perhaps a flow of tuning leads, I agreed to re-tune
>the piano. It was more of a minor tweek. The teacher came over and pounded
>out a triad in octove 1, and remarked it sounds terrible. I agreed and
>suggested it was not out of tune rather worn out dead bass strings. Her
>comment was simply it never sounded that bad when the other guy tuned it. I
>gave up...turns out in the past year they only sent two leads anyway so I
>guess I will survive. No matter what I said the client insisted I did
>something wrong to her piano. If that had been
>one of my first tunings I might have doubted myself, but it wasn't
>Richard, London ON Canada

Hi Richard,

Looking about 20 years into my past, I remembering tuning for a public 
school music teacher (string teacher) that had a very different idea (than 
mine) about how the bass section should be tuned.  Instead of stretching the 
bass in my usual way, he
wanted it, for lack of a better term, not stretched.  Was it because he was 
a violinist?  I don't know.  It sounded pretty wild to me, but it's what he 
wanted.   Back then I also knew of an elderly, very respected tuner in town, 
who told me I was tuning the bass the wrong way.  He didn't stretch the bass 
either (that's how I came up with the idea of not stretching the bass for 
this teacher).  He said I should let the harmonics sing out.  Whatever!

I've always wondered about folks playing triads at the very bottom of the 
piano, I don't recall ever seeing them written in any of the piano 
literature I've played (which, I suppose, really doesn't mean a lot!).

Just a couple of thoughts.

Barbara Richmond, RPT