Here comes the pitch

[Barbara Richmond]

Hi Alan,

Well, there is that.  I get the impression that these guys genuinely believe
that they are doing the right thing--or they give the customers that
impression, anyway.  Maybe they are just lazy and don't want to go to the
trouble of selling the job.  I'm up against "him" all the time--the
venerable old and retired, Mr. Hoozits.  I smile and nod in
acknowledgement and then politely refer to it as an old-fashioned notion.
Barring any other problems (whatever) the piano can and should be
brought up to pitch.  Heck, it was brought up to pitch right away when
it was new without any of this pussy footin' around.  In cases like this,
I define myself as the younger (ahem), or, at least, the better informed
generation of piano technician--or they don't trust me and think I'm
trying to gouge them.  Mostly, they do trust me, though. In fact, I've
been doing quite well at getting big regulation and repair jobs, simply
because nobody else has bothered with that either.

Have you handed out the PTG technical bulletin on pitch raising?

Barbara Richmond, RPT
near Peoria, Illinois



----- Original Message ----- 
From: Alan Barnard
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Sent: Monday, July 09, 2007 4:24 PM
Subject: RE: Here comes the pitch


What does one do when confronted with a piano too flat (or sharp) to tune
but the customer will not cough up any $ for the extra work to tune and
stabilize it?

If I can't sell someone on proper service (and I WOULD try to educate and
sell what's needed)--and it's obvious that this piano's tunings are, shall
we say, infrequent--then I would certainly tune the piano as it sits and
feel not the slightest shred of guilt about it.

But I would not leave my card in the piano and I wouldn't leave any notes
about what I did.

Alan Barnard
Salem, MO