Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum I played.....the client cried

I finished a pitch raise on the Client's Baldwin L and I played a bit of Beethoven only to have the client start to cry.

You see, she is moving in a year to a smaller place, and she is struggling with the decision to sell the piano, or squeeze it in somewhere. My poking at the keys made her see what a nice instrument she has, one that would be hard to replace. We looked at pictures and layout of her new place and discussed options where the piano would fit. I sure hope she decides to keep the piano.

Good on her. I really like L's.

Thank God, I genuinely thought this was going to be yet another of those melodramatic WT sob story but this situation is very real.

I had some regulars out in the countryside. One client where I had to charge mileage just for the driveway. A huge country house with a tatty old upright in one corner of a huge ballroom.

My next call, every time, was a small house, only two rooms up and two down that had a 9' grand sprawled between the two downstairs rooms, the keyboard in one room and the tail in the other.

I know I've told this tale before but it amply demonstrates priorities. I have seen large loved pianos cramped into some small spaces, I think we all probably have.

I hope a solution is found.

Bob - You might suggest to your client that she make a simple scale drawing of the floor plan of her new place on graph paper, then make scale cutouts of the outlines of her pieces of furniture to put on the floor plan and move about. It's easy to do, and it's more informative than just trying to simply visualize how things will fit. Things often don't go into rooms how you imagine they will.

Does she have other furniture she could lose and not miss so much? An extra sofa, perhaps, or a spare bed? A good time to set priorities and keep what's truly meaningful and / or necessary - and sell off or donate what's not. Chuck

Many people are beginning to see the formal dining room in a more realistic light.

Get her over here to PW, to read about what others have done!

I just tuned for a retired lady in an apartment complex that has the piano she got in the 4th grade. Fortunately it's an Acrosonic that fits in there nicely but man did it need tuned. I was glad to make it sound better although it befuddles me that even though the piano was very special to her she hadn't taken very good care of it. Maybe she just hadn't had the money over the years, I don't know.

Agreed, Scott. I saw one of those last week - family heirloom spinet, 3 notes flat, full of rust, not tuned in 30 years. The client went on about how special the piano was...

Last time I played and the client cried I asked; "music lover?"
He replied; " musician".

Sorry, I just spent the afternoon listening to clips from "A Prairie Home Companion" and trying to 'splane some of it to a Japanese friend.

Blame Marty.

When I saw the title for this thread all sorts of funny, but mostly off-topic responses came to mind prompted by the fact that I play guitar, not piano. Any attempt I made to play the piano would make people cry, but for a different reason than Bob's customer.

The backstory that nobody ever really tells is the way a piano or other expensive item gets handed down through the family, usually ending up with someone who doesn't play simply because they always envied the sibling for whom it was bought in the first place while they got less because they had a less expensive talent or hobby. It doesn't have to have been an expensive piano and probably explains the neglect they get. Unreasonable emotional attachment.

Tuners hear a lot about the aunt or uncle who played as often as we hear about a parent who played the inherited piano.

I used to ask, do you have the car you learned to drive in? befor I realised the huge emotional baggage attached to the family piano.

A fine piano inherited by someone who actually plays is a different matter but probably just as interesting.

I still have the piano of my dad's aunt. It's a full upright with a beautiful cabinet, although the varnish is rather crazed, and worn away in places. I 'replaced' it three weeks ago with a grand that's not much newer, but that is just a better instrument, better cared-for, and worth rebuilding if something should break badly.

I'd had my great-aunt's piano tuned twice a year since I re-started lessons, but had not had it tuned myself for about 4 years -- because I wasn't playing it, and had not been educated as to the importance of keeping it in tune, and also, guilt that I wasn't playing, and knowledge that its guts were in rough shape so the value of any effort was limited. It was only about a month ago that I happened to look at one tuner's pencil marks inside. It was tuned in 1940, 1946, 1950, and 1960. Those were the notes in one tuner's hand, while the instrument lived in an apartment in Oak Park, Illinois. I believe those to be all tunings done between 1940 and 1960. In an un-air-conditioned apartment in the Midwest. No wonder its soundboard is multiply cracked and the treble bridge is both cracked and split. I love the 'replacement' grand, so I'm not looking back. And yes, I *will* have the 'new' grand tuned at least twice a year, once any work it needs is complete.

It might be better for pianos if dealers were to educate their customers on maintenance costs, and let them know that after a new instrument has stabilized it's fine to just schedule tuning for once or twice a year. They don't have to listen super hard and 'know' it's out of tune before they make the call. Sending reminder cards like the dentist is helpful, even if they don't elicit an immediate response. (I briefly had a tuner who did this.) They at least keep piano tuning on the customer's radar.

Bob,

There's nothing wrong with bringing a customer to tears. I too have played something upon completion of the tuning, and the customer(always a woman),cries.
usually I acomplish this by "Through the Eyes Of Love", or "An Affair To Remember".