First update for the month of October. Last week was fairly uneventful with most piano tunings booked on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, leaving much of the rest of the week free. On Monday the 3rd I had my second call out to Wortley, a village just south of Barnsley, to tune a mini grand piano that the customer had been given for free. When I got there I discovered it was badly out of tune (about 30 cents flat) but had a great tone, all the keys were playing nicely and the action was in good condition. I tuned the piano in about 90 minutes, leaving it in a state that such a piano deserves, sounding much brighter and more resonant (and more importantly, in tune!). I then drove back to Sheffield, through Barnsley and towards Grenoside, so I could tune two more pianos nearer to my home.
Tuesday had another tuning at the Cruicible Theater in Sheffield city centre for a theater production of Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Tuning pianos in concert venues is usually easier in a away, as they are of such high quality that the harmonics to which I tune the pianos can be clearly heard right away (I’ve found the same thing with grand pianos). Sometimes with older pianos I have to spend a while listening to an interval beating because the sound is noisy and muffled, which makes the job take a tiny bit longer, but it’s something I’m used to and don’t have any complaints about.
This week has been much more busy. Most of the jobs were usual piano tuning and general maintenance work around Sheffield, Barnsley and Rotherham, although I had an interesting journey to Firberck (a small village south east of Rotherham) yesterday, place I’d never been to before. I pride myself on always being punctual but unfortunately on this occasion my sat nav ran out of battery while in the car and wouldn’t charge back up, so I had to phone the customer for directions which made me slightly late for this piano tuning job. Sometimes when I have a piano tuning job in a remote village far out of Sheffield I may have to phone to ask for directions while I’m near your house (when the sat nav works this isn’t usually a problem).
Earlier today I had a difficult job in the Loxely area of Sheffield, replacing piano key tops. Many times when key tops come off, the customer will keep the plastic or ivory key tops so that they can be stuck back on at a later date. The customer in question had kept 3 of the key tops which I glued back on as soon as I got there, but I had to bring some of my own key tops to glue on the keys. Once of the good things about having some experience being a piano tuner (I’ve been piano tuning for 2 years professionally now) is that I’ve had a chance to accumulate many piano parts that can be used for pianos with damaged or broken parts (this depends on whether they are right for the piano, of course).
When I’m not working as a piano tuner I’m usually playing my guitar at home or praciticing with my band at D.C. Studios in Barnsley. Although bandmates come from Sheffield, Rotherham, Huddersfield, Barnsley and Doncaster, we decided Barnsley would be a good place to meet. We had rehearsals on Thursday the 6th and Monday the 10th of October in preparation for a few gigs we have coming up at the end of the month.
If you would like to book a piano tuning, then please get in touch with me via phone or email. There are lots of available slots in my diary to book piano tunings for next week and the week after, as most people tend to book me in sooner rather than later (booking a tuning weeks or months in advance is not a problem if you’d prefer that).
– Richard, Piano Tuner Sheffield.