Am I the last 'signer'??

[Ron Nossaman]

> I've been following the thread about the "message" in the wurly.  I've 
> been tuning and rebuilding for 25+ years, and when apprenticing, my 
> mentor told me that "dating and initialing tunings" was a good idea.  
> When I asked why, he said that if a customer moves, or a new tuner/tech. 
> is called to work on the piano, it's the only way for the tuner/tech. to 
> know, with any certainty, the last service call _you could be sure of_. 


I agree 110%, in spite of the flood of "graffiti", and 
"marking of territory" posts that will surely follow as they 
did the last time this came up. But instead of the keys or 
plate, the underside of the music desk, or the back of the top 
front panel or underside of the bench lid is a good spot for a 
sticker or strip of masking tape on which to log tuning dates 
and procedures. I do it on a loose business card left in the 
piano as well, but those often end up in the utility drawer by 
the phone, are lost with a move, handed to a student, or are 
snatched out as a piece of handy note paper, and aren't a 
dependable service record. One lady proudly showed me a stack 
of maybe ten cards I had left in her piano, as an indication 
of how long We'd known each other. I pointed out that had she 
left the first card in the piano, all those tuning dates would 
be in line on the back of that one card instead of having all 
those cards with one date each, not even in the piano. Oh... I 
think that was the one that got me to leaving the tape in a 
hidden spot as well as the sacrificial card. The sticker or 
tape stays with the piano, out of sight but accessible if 
needed. Back when I used to mark tuning dates on keys as a 
matter of course, I NEVER had ANYONE object to this. They ALL 
realized that the permanent service record in the piano was a 
potentially useful thing, like the oil change date sticker in 
their car. They still do, but I don't usually mark on keys 
anymore.

Ron N