Hi Terry, Most if not all piano teachers need education when it comes to piano tuning and repairing. Some teachers will require more time and knowledgable information from you than others. Remember, they are piano players, not piano technicians. Therefore, they have been taught very little if anything at all, about the inner workings of the piano and more than likely, this has never been explained to her before. Piano owners require just as much time and explanaining. I would recommend she contact Yamaha's website for starters so see that they recommend tuning their instruments between 2 and 4 times per year as do all other reputable piano factories. The fact that she, as a music teacher is apparently only tuning hers one time per year, she is already way off course. Next, take some time to set down with her to explain the inner workings of the piano. How they funtion. What do they do. What happens when you do this or that a few thousand times? To let her know that you know more than she does, ask her the name of a few parts like the jack or back check or let off button? It'll keep her mouth closed longer. Explain things to her or better yet, ask her if she knows what regulation is? like, what IS regulation and how does it affect how my piano will play, feel, function etc. Explain why some pianos require more work than others and thus, more expense? Answer: More time involved, some will have more wear and tear, some are older, some have been sadly neglected requiring more work due to etc., etc. Work from that angle. As badly as you might want to tell her to stick it where the sun don't shine and I have done this on occasion myself, it might be prudent to take that extra time whether either of you likes it or not and attempt to explain it to her letting her know in no uncertain terms that YOU are the professional with the answers. She is not. YOU are the technician, she is NOT. This can be done with authority and tact and a lot less tact when required... :-) Here is a prime example for you. Many years ago, I had a complaint on a piano that I just tuned from a piano teacher. She said, you just tuned my piano and it is out of tune. It sounds horrible. It was a Yamaha C-7. I said, no, it is not out of tune, but, it does need regulation badly and the voicing is horrible as I have already explained and shown you. No, she said, I have determined because (then raising her voice to me..MISTAKE) BECAUSE I AM A MUSICIAN AND I KNOW BETTER THAN THAT! I HAVE A GOOD EAR! Well, that pissed me off. So, I also raised my voice to her and said, LADY, HOW MANY PIANOS HAVE YOU TUNED?!!! Ummm, well, none. Exactly! I've tuned well over 20,000 of them! Now, WHO do YOU suppose is BOUND to know MORE about PIANOS and tuning, you? OR ME?! Then, I gave her total silence. She quickly back tracked. So, I went over there, voiced several notes to prove my point and said, there, how's that? Much better! See, I told you it needs voicing, I said with a smile, now, next time will you just believe me? Yes she said, and I would like for you to do the rest of the work too. She was pleased as punch and showed a lot more respect after that and so did I. So, take control of the situation and be the informed boss, leader and informer would be my advice. Jer -----Original Message----- From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Terry Farrell Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2010 10:28 AM To: pianotech at ptg.org Subject: [pianotech] 2nd Bad Client in 10+ Years - Seeking Advice I'll try to make this as short and clear as I can. A piano teacher calls me asking $$ for tuning. I tell her my standard fee. She asks if I give discounts if she can get some of her students pianos for tunings. I said I don't discount. She asks again. Business is a bit slow due to economy. I said that I do discount $10 off a tuning for churches or other organizations with multiple pianos where I can submit one invoice. She asks if I can do that for her and her students. I want more work, so I relent (yeah, yeah, you know where this post is going, don't you?)...... Okay, standard $$ less $10 for you and your students - if we can get them to schedule on the same day, etc. so it works well for me. Agreement reached. First of all, it took me three visits to tune her Yamaha upright (nice piano). First visit I raised the pitch about 15 cents (she did move the piano from out of state, and was somewhat flabbergasted that it was off pitch because she has it tuned every year). While raising the pitch, about 15 little children showed up along with about 5 young mothers - kids screaming, TV blaring, moms chattering - you get the picture. I told her I could not tune her piano with all the noise - let's reschedule. She agreed and apologized for the noise - the new appt. would be noise-free she said - we set it for a few days away at 4 PM - I told her it would take me an hour to tune her piano. I was over on the far side of town that afternoon on appointments and ended arriving at problem piano teacher (PPT) at 4:30 PM. She let's me in the door and asks why I wasn't there at 4. I told her my schedule and work got me here at 4:30 (with an apology). She said she had a date with her husband at 6 and needed to start getting ready at 5. I said okay. She said she was uncomfortable with me in the home after 5. I said "okay, I understand, I apologize for the confusion, let's reschedule - is tomorrow at X okay?" She said that would be good. Show up for the third time (Saturday afternoon - she had a recital that evening and I wanted to be sure to have her piano tuned for it), give the nice Yamy a darn good tuning. She wrote me a check for PR + Tune less $10. Before I left, she asked me if I could fix her player unit (disclavier (sp?)) - turned out it worked okay, but after she played a bunch of pieces, I asked her if that was a quiet at the unit would play (the best it could do was approaching forte!). She said yes, that was as quiet as it would play - and then added that level was as quiet as SHE could play the piano. I said something like "I'm sure you can play quieter", she said no. I opened the piano lid and looked at let-off. Most hammers were letting off at 1/4" to 3/8". I explained about action regulation and how excessive let-off would make it difficult to play quietly. She said she understood and that my explanation made sense. I told her if she ever wanted to improve the performance of her piano, we could schedule an action regulation. She said she would think about it. Great. So the next day I tune the piano of one of her students. This was the Funky-Case 1959 Wurly console I posted about yesterday. This piano had seen A LOT of HARD playing - like it had been in a southern Baptist church for many years. The entire middle section of keys were low (key- leveling low), for whatever reason, let-off was about a micron away from the strings (those notes that went through let-off), excessive lost motion, and needless to say, the entire mid-section of the action had bobbling hammers. You could get most of them to strike the string once if you really whacked the key, but most of them would bobble on a medium blow. All hammers were deeply grooved. Several hammers were flat because their center pins had walked out and they moved erratically (wildly). Another 8 or 10 were very loose and you could see the pins had walked. Another dozen or so felt okay, but you could see the pins walking. An old stick & wire repair on a hammer shank fell off while I was testing things. I discussed the piano ailments with the owners. The player was a young child playing only a few months. I recommended three levels piano improvement: 1) replace piano now; 2) do minimal regulation and repair to make the piano functional and reasonable for a beginner student and then replace piano within a year or two; 3) if the piano were not going to be replaced, then I recommended full action regulation and repairs. Hubby asked repeatedly if we shouldn't do the full monty anyway, I said that was fine, but that if they were going to replace it within a couple years, that I could make it function reasonably well for half the full monty cost. They agreed to the minimal regulation/repair approach to restore function. I told them I would call them to schedule the work. Before I left, I raised the pitch of the piano 50 to 90 cents and spliced a bass string that broke during the pitch raise (man, that was the loudest break I have heard yet!). Told them we could settle up $$ when I complete all the work. Except for three trips to tune PPT piano, sounds okay so far - right? So, yesterday evening, PPT calls and leaves message - "How come you are charging Mrs. Funky Case (FC) $X to tune her piano when mine only cost $X/4?" PPT apparently played the FC piano when they bought it ($300) a few months back - she concluded that the piano played just fine. I called her back after waiting for the smoke to stop coming out of my ears....... I explained to her about action wear and regulation. Fortunately I was able to incorporate what PPT and I had talked about with the excessive let-off on PPT Yamy. I also explained that half the notes on FC piano had gone so far out of regulation that they were bobbling (multiple strikes) AND that several hammer/butt assemblies where FALLING OFF AND that another dozen were very loose. She explained to me that FC didn't even want to tune the piano, but that PPT had told FC that the piano was sooooo far out of tune that she really should have it tuned (wow, imagine that). She told me there was no reason to do any more work on FC piano that what I did to her piano (PR + tune). I bit my tongue and said that was fine with me, but that the piano was untunable as notes were bobbling and hammers were falling off and were not even hitting a number of strings and that I would not be able to tune the piano. Goodbye! (I was maybe a tad huffy, but given the situation, I think I kept it quite reasonably under control.) Okay. There it is, that brings anyone that has read this long diatribe this far up to the current situation. I'm of two minds: 1) Do not do any more business with PPT or ANY client spun off from her AND, when someone calls asking for a discount, tell them YOU DON"T DISCOUNT PERIOD!!!!; or 2) Do whatever FC wants and try to make them as happy as possible. Mrs. FC and Mr. FC really seemed very nice and concerned about having a decent piano for their children (four) to play. Believe me, I have no problem at all walking away from ANY work related to PPT and her spin-offs. I value peace and low stress in my life. BUT, I would like to help them if they want to have their children playing on a functional piano. Can anyone think of an approach to convey to Mr. & Mrs. FC that I'm not trying to rip them off, that their piano is worn to the point of disfunction, and that it will be a detriment to their children's piano progress and experience to have to practice on that piano in its current condition. Heck, I don't really need to take the action back to my shop to repin a dozen action centers - the main reason I was going to take the action back to my shop was that I was going to file the hammers at no charge - that didn't need to be done to restore function, but I just couldn't stand it! I find this situation bizzare. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. Right after I got off the phone with PPT when we set our initial appointment, I walked over to my wife and told her about the discount, and I said that I just know something really funky is going to happen with this teacher. I know I shouldn't have given her a discount, but with business being a little on the slow side, I'd rather tune several pianos at $10 off rather than zero pianos at full price - but I just know something bad is going to shake out from doing this. Any suggestions to help four kids get a functioning set of keys under their little fingers? Oh, and, I have not yet called FC back to pick up action (since PPT told them there was no reason to repair/regulate their piano). I'm glad this list is here for venting. I feel a bit better! Thanks! :-) Terry Farrell PS, I hope there are not too many misspellings and grammatical errors in this post. I usually re-read before sending, but in this case, in an effort to not get all steamed up again, I'm just going to hit send now!
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