Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum So, what did you do today?

Well, today was one of those "interesting days." An older customer, in his mid 80's, a doctor, well, used to be anyway. Poor hearing. Wears hearing aides, yes, you know what's coming next don't you?

I sent in a technician that works for me to tune his piano, I'm booked solid through January 23rd. He called back complaining that the piano was out of tune. So, I sent the tech back again. After talking with the tech, I called the gentleman. He was adamant that from C-6-C-7, every single note was ONE FULL TONE SHARP!!!! So, I went over there today.

The piano was perfectly in tune. All octaves matched and nothing was 1 tone sharp. He kept playing Bb 6 and C-5 together saying, there, that's a closer match in tone. My mind went to "tone" instead of tune which is what I suspected all along seeing as how customers never know how to describe anything anyway. I tried to get him to describe it to the best of his ability but, well, he wasn't able to accomplish much other than to continually say that it was one tone sharp. I voiced C-7 a tad softer just to see if it made any difference. Nothing. Still 2 notes sharp. Bb is right, he said.

After spending nearly 30 minutes talking with him, he is rather tart in his statements and just wants to be right no matter what because I continually kept being interrupted even though he was looking right at me while I talked directly to him, I finally said, well John (not his real name), it isn't the piano, it's your hearing. You may not want to hear that, especially being a doctor but, beginning on C-6, is where you lose it first and up from there. You can barely hear me talking to you when I'm looking directly at you let alone facing away from you. All of the C's are on the correct "pitch" and they are "in tune" with one another as are the surrounding notes.

All that to no avail. He kept insisting he was right. "I'm not going to argue with you "BUT", he would say...

He even tried to get his house maid to agree with him by saying "does the TONE of these two notes sound the same?" I said, you're asking the wrong question. "Does the PITCH of these two notes sound the same?" She said yes, they do sound the same. At first, she had said, the tone did not sound the same. Of course not. The piano needs $3,500 worth of work including hammer filing, major regulation, voicing etc.. It's an Emerson grand by the way. After I described it correctly to the maid, she agreed that the pitch was the same. C, was C...

Frustrating! I did find that the soft pedal was not working at all however so, I did fix that, free of charge which did make him happy... He is one of those clients that well, things are right when he says that it is right... Move C-7 down to Bb-6 and it sounds "better." Still not right but, better.... Ya, right....

Sounds like a fun day Jerry, I've been lucky with most of my customers and haven't had to deal too much with this sort of thing.

I have had some unusual learning experiences dealing with a handicapped customer of mine, he is unfortunately blind but extremely well adapted and plays the piano like an angel. Well earlier on I learned that all removed piano parts need to go under the piano...he took a flip over the fallboard that was set down by the couch. Stupid me. Next there is the difficulty of explaining that his piano was covered in filth and needed a cleaning, think about how much this matters for him along with anything else on the piano that is visually aesthetic. The piano sounds really nice for its almost 100 year age but its ~35 y/o strings are dark colored and slightly rusty. The associated issues with this and the hammers that have already been sanded years ago certainly doesn't allow the piano to live up to its full potential.

Well he has an incredibly sharp ear and pointed out a half dozen notes in the lower tenor that he says has a slight metallic ringy sound on the decay. He's not ready to restring the whole piano yet budget wise, but was wonderring if there was anything I could do with it. Well I checked everything I could in regards to the bridge and its pins and other things and still this metallic sound is kind of there. Not sure where to go with this since I could try and voice this away by close needling either side of the crown, resanding some hammers, fluffing the strike point a bit ect...but there is no guarantee that ring won't go away. After discussing it with a colleague, he simply mentioned that this is detective work, make sure I get paid for it, and make sure the client understands there is no guarantee it will work with a piano this age in this condition. I'm somewhat uncomfortable with this arrangement as I am a results oriented guy, but he had a good point and I followed his advice.

Well, the voicing helped a lot but didn't cure it totally. The customer was satisfied with what I did in about an hour with it. I'm kind of glad I didn't turn the work away for fear of leaving an unsatisfied customer. We are so lucky to have unique experiences almost every day in this work.

'Unique. Yes, some of them are uniquer than others!

Ha-Ha Emmery. I flipped over one of those myself one time landing onto the couch. Lucky for me, nobody was around to see it at the time. I learned years ago, that way, not to place things behind me!!

It is unique alright... Kind of makes me want to unique away....

It is unfortunate that we are unable to make them all happy but in cases such as this one, we sure can't help it that their hearing is bad and playing tricks with their ears either.. Nothing else can be done.

This is where I like to be able to come back in and change things. I wrote it quickly before I had to leave to go elsewhere and came back later to find lots of mistakes! I THINK I fixed um all!

I often wonder if we are all hearing the same thing in the same way, and I'm not talking about our hearing accuity as this varies with everyone. I mean it in a way much like we all see colors slightly differently, some people being even color blind to some degree. A study done on this years ago indicated that some primitive tribal cultures do not even see some colors simply because they never had a defining term for it. Can a person hear a buzzing or ringing on some frequencies because of how their ears internals work? It would be nice to know this, otherwise we may be chasing ghosts that arn't there.

Emmery,
I have found that I have a hard time with F#6. No matter how hard I try to get the unisons clean, I always seem to still hear beats on that note.

Age can make strange things with the pitch recognition, I have seen an inversion in the scale ex (6th octave) CDEFG sounding CDFEG, not really franckly, but with a really large doubt

And it was a musician.

Indeed not playing a seventeen expecting an octave...

Had a customer yesterday who's husband is bedridden with maybe a few more months to live. I popped my head in to just say hello to him and the old timer says "I wish they made pianos I could play in bed, my fingers work fine". Well I came up with this photo of an old solution to that which would have done the trick. I don't think there is anything available now for this problem, which is a shame. (Imagine getting a call to regulate one...lol)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nationaalarchief/4192748677/

Tuned a Wurlitzer Console today for a lady. Her grandparents bought the piano new when she was a child over 30 years ago. After many years she finally got the piano back but has not had the funds to have it tuned. He mother decided to have her piano tuned for a Christmas present. The piano was pretty bad out of tune, the bass was over a half step off, the middle was about 12-25 cents flat and the treble was off by about a quarter step and a few slipped unisons in the treble. She has been playing the piano in this condition for a couple of years.

As I finished up the tuning, I began running some chords from bottom to top around the circle of 5ths. (She sat and watched me through most of the tuning). As I ran the chords, I heard her mutter "Oh my gosh" several times. I played a little Fur Elise for her. She began to cry and said, "My piano has NEVER sounded that good!! The low bass and upper treble have never sounded right before, even when the piano was new!!"

After thanking my profusely she gave me a hug and then played a song for me. She said she felt like a concert pianist playing a piano that sounded that good. It made me smile! It was a good day!! :-)

Tuned a S&S "D" in the middle of a Fry's Electronics store. What a racket in there! Two isles away was a Blue Ray and big screen demo going with a Celine Dion concert. I tracked her just before the 6th octave on one of her screeching solos. And at the same time about 5 isles away was the car stereo display with goons trying to find out exactly how much bass is enough. The "D" sits in the computer isle and has a QRS thingee on it. A pianist comes in once or twice a week to play. He also owns a tuning hammer and "fixes" a few notes where he wants them. They pay me pretty good otherwise I would just say no.

David, that reminds me of the Baldwin set ups in Sears stores. They would have a small area with a dozen pianos or so, usually right by one of the entrances. Noisy, with constant interruptions from curious people, but most annoying were the over the shoulder peepers....... I'd give out a business card or two but had to do it on the sly, because Baldwin frowned on it! The Baldwin service Dept was supposed to get referral tunings, so they could grab some money out of it. ha ha........those were the days......

That's exactly what happens to me! After a while I have to just ignore the "are you the tuner" questions and just try to get through the job without going insane. I didn't know that Baldwins were marketed in Sears stores. Must've been a delight.

Funny that people even bother to ask us that isn't it? "Are you the tuner?" No, I'm the plumber....

Had another one today ask if I could make a living at that? Yes. How many pianos do you tune in a day? Then, how much do you charge per tuning? "None of your business how many I tune in a day.... and none of your business how much money I can make in a week either." I think from now on, I'll start answering those questions with this question.. How much money do YOU make a week??? See how they like it...

Tuned a piano at a local nursing home today. I don't know about you all, but while I'm tuning a crowd usually gathers behind me and it always seems to end in a mini concert and hymn sing-a-long. :-)

I PM'd Jerry Groot and asked him if he could fix a leak in my piano.

I can fix anything Marty! I'd recommend, adding so much water to your piano that you need a new piano! hehehe!

Yea, that Groot fella can fix anything except the crack of dawn and the break of day, and word is that he was outside early this morning with some tools, so that crack of dawn may just be fixed by tomorrow morning. 'Can't wait to see that!

He might get away with it if Tony Orlando isn't standing nearby.

A couple goes on vacation to a fishing resort in northern Minnesota.The husband likes to fish at the crack of dawn - the wife likes to read.

One morning the husband returns after several hours of fishing and decides to take a nap.

Although not familiar with the lake, the wife decides to take the boat out. She motors out a short distance, anchors, and continues to read her book.

Along comes a game warden in his boat. He pulls up alongside the woman and says, "Good morning Ma'am. What are you doing?"

"Reading a book," she replies, (thinking, "Isn't that obvious?")

"You're in a restricted fishing area," he informs her.

"I'm sorry officer, but I'm not fishing, I'm reading."

"Yes, but you have all the equipment. For all I know you could start at any moment. I'll have to take you in and write you up."

"If you do that, I'll have to charge you with sexual assault," says the woman.

"But I haven't even touched you," says the game warden.

"That's true, but you have all the equipment. For all I know you could start at any moment."

"Have a nice day ma'am", and he left.

I hate it when people out-funny me! 'Good one.