Hmmm.
To answer your question, you would stick to ‘balanced’ tuning style. This is the default and for most pianos would be an excellent aural tuning style, any adjustments would be down to subjective tastes of the tuner.
I would advise against attempting a pitch correction yourself if you do not have any experience - if it’s an old piano you might break strings and it really might be so far off that the tuner would still consider a pitch correction necessary when they turn up. In my experience large pitch corrections generally have to be completed quickly in less than 30 minutes otherwise the tension won’t settle across the piano.
No offence intended, this is the reality of tuning something with 220+ strings and 20 tonnes of pressure. If it’s your own piano then fair enough, but you might not save the owner any money and could cause yourself some unnecessary stress.
Usually tuners charge time and a half for pitch corrections.
And if money is very tight and the instrument isn’t played with other instruments you might ask the tuner to ‘tune it to itself’ so it’s below concert pitch but in tune with itself. This is actually sometimes the best practice with very old pianos which wouldn’t be able to cope with a pitch raise.
Hope the piano is sorted soon!
