Pitch-raising of the last few years has been turned into a bit of a circus. There is nothing inherently wrong with this as there has been much good accomplished in the way of technique, world records, and written words about the subject. What seems to have been neglected is the fact that, for so many of us that go out there day after day to make a living, pitch-raising is no game but a function of our activities that saps our energy and stresses our minds and bodies.
Occasionally, I am tightly scheduled for two or three weeks at a time. When I encounter a piano that is flat, and that I know will not stay in tune and on pitch with only one tuning, I have to work harder to do the two tunings during the same time I had hoped to do but one. What this means is that I have to decide what the fall rate of this instrument will be and raise the pitch to compensate. I must tune the piano well enough so that, when I go through it for the second time, it will require less energy than in a regular tuning, will stay where I want it, and will leave me feeling confident that it reflects the skill I brought to bear.
I schedule four tunings a day: one at 9:30 am (to avoid the rush hour), the second at 11:30 am, the third at 1:30 pm, and the final tuning at 3:30 pm. I allow 90 minutes to go in and do the work required, and then 30 minutes to move on to the next job. If I am unable to do the work necessary during that amount of time, I decide what work can be done and what work can be postponed to another time. I have never deferred a pitch-raise, although on some doubtful pianos I have not raised the pitch at all.
I generally take 20 to 30 minutes to raise pitch and then another 45 to 50 minutes to fine tune. The pitch-raise time may seem excessive to some, but my objective is to finish with a piano in tune that requires a fine polish only for the second tuning - without more rough cutting.
At one time I was tuning so many pianos of one make and model that I was able to pitch-raise them up to ...
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