[pianotech] repeat business

[Ryan Sowers]

I came to one of those pianos this past week - they claimed the piano had
been tuned 3 or 4 years ago, and the tuning sounded pretty darn good. But I
noticed the tone was a bit subdued by the string cuts in the hammers. So I
was able to do a quick hammer filing/string mating and touch up tuning in
the same time as a regular appointment. The difference in touch and tone was
very noticeable, whereas if I had simply tuned the piano, any improvement in
the sound would have been mostly placebo effect.

Its rare that I find that there isn't some improvement that can be made to
the regulation or voicing of a piano. They can always stand some cleaning,
and some clients appreciate that more than the tuning!

Ryan

On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 11:13 AM, Susan Kline <skline at peak.org> wrote:

>
>  I've been amazed at how sour tunings can go with a seasonal change, and
>> how they can magically heal themselves when things return to time of tuning
>> conditions.
>>
>
>
> Hi, Ryan
>
> Ah, yes, the self-healing tuning. That has always been a favorite idea for
> me.
>
> I do warn customers that if a piano which has sat in pretty good shape for
> a long, long time suddenly goes way out of whack in a few days, they should
> grit their teeth and wait about three weeks, because often it will go right
> back in. On the other hand, if it goes sour all at once like that, and they
> tune it then, give it about three weeks and it'll probably go back out
> again, only in the other direction.
>
> I try to spread the idea to customers that it's better to tune just after a
> major change of season, instead of just before it. Nonetheless, they are the
> ones who decide, and if in spite of being warned that the time is not ideal,
> they want a tuning in August ... they get a tuning in August. (Well, not
> THIS August, at least not by me, but maybe next August.)
>
> If I come to tune a piano and it's almost perfect already, even if it has
> been two or three years, I give it a touch up and the customer a price
> break, and I suggest waiting till it bothers them to have it done again. So
> many people feel that "regular maintenance" should be determined not by how
> the piano sounds but by how much time has elapsed. I try to convince them to
> use their ears instead. "I feel my life is too short to spend it tuning
> pianos which are already in tune."
>
> Susan Kline
>
>
>>
>
>


-- 
Ryan Sowers, RPT
Puget Sound Chapter
Olympia, WA
www.pianova.net
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