[pianotech] another treat

[Ron Nossaman]

Boy did I have a great time this morning. Had three tunings 
scheduled at a small "something for everyone" music studio. 
The last tuner had charged him $60 each in September, and he 
had fished me for a discount for the three when he made the 
appointment. No dice, but he scheduled anyway. Hmmmm.

He showed me the pianos when we got there. Three moderately 
old and very flat and nasty sounding spinets. These were tuned 
when? Yup, it said 9/08 on the keys, and A-433 on the first 
one. What? This guy tuned these pianos at a professional music 
studio without bringing them up to pitch? Yes, that's exactly 
what he did, and didn't mention it to the owner. The piano 
tuned at 433 was a full semitone low, and another that was 
marked as having been tuned at 440 was nearly a half semitone 
down. RH% was in the mid 40s. The owner asked if it was 
remotely possible for the pianos to drop that much. All three? 
No, not remotely. So the owner is now looking at three jumbo 
pitch changes in addition to the non discounted tunings. He's 
less than thrilled, but says go for it.

I did the first one, and hunted down the owner to come play it 
before I did any others. Told him it was to give him the 
chance to run me off early before I did any more damage. He 
was impressed. The other tuner didn't do that. Gee, really? He 
was pleased, and said to press on.

Number two, full semitone PR&T. No appreciable drama other 
than my muttering.

Number three, the tuner left a note on his card on this one. 
Tuned A-440, both bridges bad. Sure enough, the bass bridge 
speaking side pins were migrating in a full length crack 
leaving barely noticeable side bearing on the pins. The low 
tenor was pretty cracked up too. The whole piano was about a 
half semitone down. And no, the cracked bridges didn't make 
the whole piano drop 50 cents, it just hadn't been pulled to 
anywhere near 440 when it was tuned. So here we have a tuner 
that says he tuned to 440, and didn't, in a professional music 
studio on a piano that shouldn't have been tuned at all with 
the bridges in that condition. The owner was gone by then, as 
I had been informed, so I found someone else to show the 
problem to, declined to tune it, gave him a rough repair price 
range, and baled out.

Discount Tuner is, meanwhile, still out there spreading - uh, 
joy, wherever he slithers.

Some days, it's safer in the shop. Some days, not. This was 
one of those days.
Ron N