Pitch Raise

[pianotune05@comcast.net]

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Hi Dean,
That's an interesting idea about the tubing.  I'm having trouble though visualizing what you mean, tubing, some sort of cover over the pin?  

You mention high and low harmonics.  Im curious, when I play the f3a3 third, I hear two things, a low wave & a higher wa wa wa wa wa.  Which If I flatten or sharpen the note, the wa wa wa seems to either slow down or speed up, but the other is hard to detect at times.  w hat is your take on that phenomina?

I do try to go fast on the piano, but I have this problem.  If a fourth is out, or a fifth sounds too stretched or narrow, I can' tjust leave it and move on.  I have to fix it.  Actually, I try to fix everything, why is my son crying, how can I fix it? :)  He's teething, you can't." :)  Anyway, although I'm not a pro like you guys, I'm still putting my name out there because eventually when people call, I'll be ready.  

In you marketing approach, you mentioned post cards, etc.  I tried telemarketing banquet halls, bed and breakfasts today.  the furthest I got with it was about three or four said to sen d a business card.  One lady took my name and #.  I left a ton of messages.  Any ideas on this? and how to get past that "not being able to leave a note sounding horrible?

Marshall

-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: "Dean May" <deanmay@pianorebuilders.com> 

> Hi Duaine, 
> 
> Quick and dirty is what it sounds like. You go through one pass just as 
> fast as you can, 15-20 minutes. Some go faster. You do it by sacrificing 
> accuracy, obviously. As you get experienced at it, when you come back 
> for the second pass you find a lot of notes pretty close and needing 
> only minor tweaking. 
> 
> I personally think "speed tuning" is excellent training. It forces you 
> to focus on the beats that really count and you learn to filter out 
> trash noise. When someone is first starting out tuning it is easy to get 
> bogged down in hearing all kinds of noises. You end up spending 4 hours 
> on one tuning and wearing yourself out totally. My philosophy is to 
> force yourself to move on to the next note. You gotta figure that first 
> starting out it will sound bad whether you spend 1 hour or 4 hours. If 
> you are going to work at it for 4 hours I think the tuning will be 
> better with 4 one hour passes than one 4 hour pass. You'll learn more, 
> too. 
> 
> Learning to minimize wasted motion is a real key to speed training. Time 
> spent moving mutes, hammer, fingers, etc is wasted time. An extra 4 
> seconds on a pin is an extra 15 minutes of tuning time. Learn to do it 
> quickly and efficiently. 
> 
> Ear plugs are also a must for speed training. They filter out extraneous 
> noises, all the incoherent white noise in a room. They also lop off the 
> upper harmonics of the note, which is where a lot of false beats come 
> from, but they allow the lower harmonics through, the ones you need to 
> hear. You don't need those upper harmonic frequencies until you get into 
> octave eight, and there you just pull the plugs out a little bit so more 
> of them can get through. Ear plugs allow you to focus on the beats you 
> need to hear and eliminate distracting noise. Plus your ears aren't 
> totally beat up after 4-6 hours of tuning. Use 'em. Do your final checks 
> without them in and you'll be amazed at how great the piano sounds. I 
> use the cheap silicone variety at any drug store. 
> 
> For Marshall, specifically, I am sure there are already good techniques 
> out there that sight impaired tuners use for keeping track of what 
> tuning pin they are on. Perhaps you could use 8 short lengths of tubing 
> that will slip over the tuning pins. The first thing you could do is 
> mark the location of all the A's with a piece of tubing. Then you 
> wouldn't have to go all the way to one of the breaks to count back to 
> your position if you get lost. 
> 
> Recently I was called out to tune for a jazz concert. The organizer was 
> a friend of mine and he forgot to schedule in advance. By the time I got 
> there the musicians and crowd was starting to trickle in. By the time I 
> was done the room was crowded and noisy. The piano was awful when I 
> started. I packed in the earplugs and hammered the keys so I could hear 
> over the crowd. I put a 20 minute tuning on it using RCT and got out of 
> there. A week later I went back for a real tuning and I was amazed at 
> how good it sounded. 
> 
> Dean 
> Dean May cell 812.239.3359 
> PianoRebuilders.com 812.235.5272 
> Terre Haute IN 47802 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message----- 
> From: pianotech-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org] On 
> Behalf Of Hechler Family 
> Sent: Saturday, January 07, 2006 5:31 PM 
> To: Pianotech 
> Subject: Re: Pitch Raise 
> 
> Gary, 
> 
> I still have never caught on to the two pass theory. I still do one pass 
> and let the customer know that, for it to be better, don't wait so long 
> between tunings. 
> 
> So please expand on your definition of a "quick and dirty" pass. 
> (meaning actually what do you do - which I probably will try since most 
> of my customers have old uprights and players. 
> 
> Thanks you, 
> Duaine 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________ 
> pianotech list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives 
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