FAQs
- What should the customer know about your pricing (e.g., discounts, fees)?
The tuning fee is $215.00. There are times if a piano has not been tuned for a long time or is quite below standard pitch when the piano may need a second tuning to stabilize the initial tuning. You can think of it as putting a new string on a guitar and having to retune the string a few times before it stays in tune. Pianos strings have a great deal of tension on them and the steel wire also actually has a memory of sorts, wanting to revert to its previous tension. Anyway, the rare times this is needed my process is to suggest a second tuning within a month and the second tuning is reduced to $150.00. Also, as with everything involving your piano, I would discuss this with you beforehand to give you a choice of one tuning at the pitch where it is or doing a pitch raise and the second tuning. For any work on your piano I always talk with you about your piano, your options, the outcome of different options and make suggestions according to your needs and expectations of your piano.
- What is your typical process for working with a new customer?
Probably the main thing you should know is that I love educating my clients about their piano, its condition, what service it may need and why, what service it could use but is not crucial or maybe even necessary at the moment. My job is to make your musical experience with the piano as enjoyable as possible.
- What education and/or training do you have that relates to your work?
Years and years of attending local, state and national Piano Technician Conventions on every subject of piano tuning, maintenance and restoration possible. Intensive hands on training at several Steinway workshops at Steinway. Graduate of Yamaha's "Little Red Schoolhouse." For several years was a CTE, Certified Tuning Examiner in the Piano Technicians Guild, one of a small handful of technicians nationwide qualified to give the tuning exam to tuners applying to become a registered member. Was personally trained by Don Angle, Hubbard's finest technician, to service harpsichords...fortunate to learn from the master! Almost 25 years as the piano and harpsichord technician at The University of California Santa Cruz was really training at it's best, tuning, preparing, rebuilding pianos under every circumstance imaginable, tuning for high end musicians, recording situations that involved mastering different tuning systems and temperaments....working with many different types of keyboards: clavichords, various harpsichords, early fortepianos on up to the Imperial Grand Bosendorfer.