One woman said that before I began she wanted to tell me about the piano.
It was one of those turn of the century giant uprights with the beautiful woodworking. It wasn't a brand I had heard of or could find a serial number for. Can't remember now what it was.
Anyway her Great Granddad had bought it for her Great Grandmother who wanted to learn to play, but she never got around to learning. Then it was passed to her Grandmother who also never learned to play it. Now she has it she wanted her little kids to learn.
They couldn't remember when the Great Grandfather bought it, but it has been a family joke that no one has learned to play it, and in all of that time it hadn't ever been tuned.
Some of the family thought she shouldn't get it tuned out of tradition.
I assumed that it really had been tuned sometime in the past and that the family story was exaggerated.
But when I checked it with my tuning fork the A440 turned out to be closer to C#440.
The hammers were hard like a rock, but had very little wear on them. But the weirdest thing was the tuning pins. They had a gold coating on them the same color as the plate. And as I tuned it you could tell where I had been because it would flake off a little. It looks like they coated the pins after they finished tuning it at the factory and it hadn't been touched in the 100+ years since.
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Gannon Rhinehart
Santa Fe NM
(505) 692-8385
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Original Message:
Sent: 08-06-2022 21:38
From: James Kelly
Subject: Longest time between tunings
Of all of the pianos you have tuned in your career what has been the longest time between tunings you have done on a customers piano or from the history of tunings as told by the customer ?
The top 2 in my case are both Baldwin Acrosonic spinets . Number one had not been tuned in 60 years- the owner was 65, got the piano when she was 5 and never remembers it ever being tuned, I forget the exact reading but it was off the range of my SATIII. many pitch adjustments later the beast was tamed no strings where broken
I completed another Baldwin Acrosonic yesterday that was built in 1975, owned by the current owners aunt and never tuned after delivery in 1975. several pitch adjustments and a fine tuning with a little hammer voicing and it sounded pretty good
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James Kelly
Owner- Fur Elise Piano Service
Pawleys Island SC
(843) 325-4357
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