and called the customer over so he could hear the out of tune note in comparison. He couldn't hear anything. It made me very sad.

Makes you wonder why they bothered to call in a tuner in the first place.

His daughter is coming home from college

That means that the poor thing has playing that piano like that all of her life.

You should charge those guys extra because in 12 yrs they will call somebody else for the next horrendous tuning.

it's like *seeing* though... it is surprising what people do not hear or see...

particualrly if one has always been able to hear or see in a *refined* way...

griffonage: good point.

some of it I attribute to training or edu... but I do feel that brains in the human beings are not all created equally...

and some are predisposed to favor certain capacities, while others are better at operating in entirely different areas of the brain...

I have spent 36 years tuning pianos and I admit that my hearing is trained and unusual. But it frustrates me that most home piano owners

don't really get the difference in quality of sound to their piano when I'm done.

which is why we all sometimes have such difficulties in communicating...

They hand me the check and don't really know what or why they paying me for.

I have learned this via teaching...

ps: your convo was a lot more entertaining before I stepped in

so please continue....

griffonage: not at all. Your input of "seeing" was helpful

I recently saw a commercial where an arthritic person was playing a piano and the piano was disintegrating under her fingers showing

how much pain she was in while playing the piano. I wish I could have pianos begin to fall apart like that when they need a tuning.

It would get people to call me over QUICK before their piano became useless.

that although they are very unappreciative it's really because of a kind of sensory lack, and not really their fault. When they hear it

being played after you've tuned it, they may feel a sense of comfort and harmony that they can't consciously detect.

when I teach people to *see*... they are always amazed at what was there all along, that they had never noticed...

so on a positive note your services are probably more useful than you realize

lemongrass: Something funny happens when I tighten a bench for a tuning customer. They often think I adjusted the keys making the piano

easier. It's just an illusion. But a very common comment that I get.

Talk about sensory lack.

Oh, what a puzzle.

mimipal: Ive been working this puzzle for a very very long time, too

fears my parents are somewhat like your customers, chrysler8080. They've had my piano untuned for nearly 20 years and now they're thinking

of putting it in a trailer and driving it cross country themselves. I'm afraid I'm going to have a very large paperweight when it gets here.

They don't quite understand in a meaningful way yet that it's not furniture.