Here comes the pitch

[Will Wickham]

I've run across the same tooner(s) in upstate NY. Just today I talked  
with a woman who said "the last tooner said "the piano won't stop  
sustaining now" just before leaving... He also left at least one note  
that won't play.

  Can't wait to see that one!

will
steaming in southern NY!


On Jul 9, 2007, at 4:36 PM, Robin Blankenship wrote:

> Well, there seems to be a Mister Minus 100 Cents right here in the  
> south-central Virginia area. A huge percentage of the pianos that,  
> when I first see them, are at an even 100 cents low, were last  
> tuned by the same fellow. What consistency!!!
>
> Robin Blankenship
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Barbara Richmond"  
> <piano57 at insightbb.com>
> To: "Pianotech List" <pianotech at ptg.org>
> Sent: Monday, July 09, 2007 4:25 PM
> Subject: Re: Here comes the pitch
>
>
>> Hey, I thought that guy lived in Peoria!  :-)
>>
>> Barbara Richmond, RPT
>> near Peoria, Illinois
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ron Nossaman" <rnossaman at cox.net>
>> To: "Pianotech List" <pianotech at ptg.org>
>> Sent: Monday, July 09, 2007 2:54 PM
>> Subject: Here comes the pitch
>>
>>
>>>
>>> Mid morning, I tuned (at) a Wurlitzer spinet, with a half-to  
>>> three quarter semitone pitch raise. No surprise there, but I got  
>>> to looking at the printing on the keys inside and noted the last  
>>> two times it was tuned. On 9/27/97, it was "tuned @ 1/8 low", it  
>>> said. I wondered why such a moderate pitch raise wasn't done with  
>>> the tuning. Then on 10/21/2000, it was "R to A435", according to  
>>> the next key. Again, why wasn't it brought up to pitch? I looked  
>>> it over, and found no indication that it wasn't structurally  
>>> sound enough to bring up, so I did, and tuned (at) it at pitch.
>>>
>>> A stop on the way back for lunch, to look over a Kimball console  
>>> they wanted to sell, found a piano in not bad shape, and over a  
>>> semitone low. Again, the keys indicated that the same guy had  
>>> tuned it in 1998, and left it over a half semitone low.
>>>
>>> I find this guy's name in low pitched pianos all around, and he  
>>> seems pathologically reluctant to pull anything at all up to  
>>> pitch. I don't get it. A piano that got 50 cents low naturally is  
>>> so uneven that it won't tune in one pass at any pitch  even if  
>>> the center is left at it's approximate pitch, so why not make two  
>>> full passes and pull the bloody thing up where it at least has a  
>>> chance of ending up where it's supposed to be? The owners of  
>>> these two pianos paid this guy to tune their pianos and he didn't  
>>> even make an attempt. Many times, I've explained the need for a  
>>> big pitch raise to an incredulous first time customer who can't  
>>> understand the need because the piano was just tuned a year or  
>>> two ago. "Why didn't the last tuner do that"?  Why indeed?
>>>
>>> Off to tune one of my redesigns. This ought to feel like a vacation.
>>>
>>> Ron N
>