Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum So, what did you do today?

Today? ZERO. Me home sick today. Had 4 tunings scheduled. 3 homes, 1 church... Murphys Law strikes again.

Jerry, with our "big storm" coming, you might be home a few days. Hope your feeling better soon.

Thanks Monster.

What? A storm? Oh goody..... Just looked at the national weather service. Not looking good for us for the next few days. Play time? We get to play?

Play time?? more than I want. Making some tools today and mating hammers to strings. Going to fix the leaky bathroom faucet. Waiting for my casters from the platters (sp?), they said they'd be done a week 1/2 ago...those guys are the worst, but when they have your stuff...

Went for a 3 hour bike ride up to the local summit at 3,000 feet. Got a little chilly, but nothing like you folks in the frozen northland. It's pretty funny to hear Californians complain about the weather.

Removed the draconian flow restricter from my newly installed kitchen faucet, which was at a trickle. Rewired the living rooms stereo speakers.

Tuned, and touched up regulation and voicing on my piano. Jammed on a freshly tuned piano with my guitar playing friend Robert, AKA Martini Max. Sweet!

Only did 3 today but all were pitch raises. 1st was a little church circa 1850 abandoned by the county and donated to a small group who promised to keep up the old cemetary in exhange for the old building. Clapboard, outhouse, wood stove. Called a few weeks ago with Kimball upright and Adam Schaff upright, both donated and hauled to church in a horse trailer. I'm to pick. Both were 1920. Best of the worst was the Kimball, 48 inch. Was able to bring it up to pitch, reglue a split key and align some dampers. Gospel picking and singing tonite!

Next Wurlitzer spinet, CLP butts, 1/2 step flat, ease front rail bushings, etc.
Samick studio with back checks tapping fallboard, 1/2 step flat. Owner was rabid, foaming political "independent." Brief, but interesting conversation...

Picked up action from a Schumman console, 15 broken damper springs and 20-25 broken hammer butt flange cords.
Had a no show at a church to be let in.
Had oil changed in car and set up more appointments.
Expecting 2-4 inches of snow next 24 hours.

Tuned for;

http://www.shenyunperformingarts.org/

This weekend on Sat and Sunday.

Yamaha CFIII about 4 years old.

Stayed for the Show on Sunday with my 18 year old son and his Grand Mother (my mother)

If anyone has the opportunity to see or otherwise be involved with this show.

Do it.

It is a fabulous show and a truly great cast of people.

Totally sunny here all day...so......I played hooky....and went to the courts.....shhhhh

Today I have been working on the band library, giving me a real appreciation for librarians for large ensembles.

Yesterday we went to the Pacific Flyway Festival, and we were able to go to St. Peter's Chapel at Mare Island, the largest collection of Tiffany windows west of the Mississippi. I saw a reversal of symbols on the way out there: A dove attacking a hawk!

Now I know why my phones rang twice as much today.

I tuned a Hamburg Steinway 4 times for this troupe when they were in San Jose last year. I hope I get the gig again when they're in town.

Pretty amazing group of performers, very interesting to watch the dancers practice during the tuning. The ochestra, particularly the drums, made me glad I had my ETD with me.

I got some feedback via e-mail from my Saturday job:

Date: Monday, February 8, 2010 6:32 PM
From: laura *****
To: billbremmerrpt
Subject: Tuning update
Size: 5 KB
Hi Bill -
Thank you so much again. I hope that your trip home was uneventful in a good way.

I really like the sound of the piano and appreciate the significance of your ability to optimize the piano's unique qualities. It is remarkable that your tuning seems to naturally resolve my specific concerns: it really opened up the 3rd octave from sounding indistinct and nasally, and made the 4th octave a stronger, more pleasing foundation for the treble. The fifth octave is still sweet and the 6th octave sings out more. The voicing balanced the dynamic of the bass and the 3rd octave: overall I feel that the tone of the entire piano is more balanced with a smoother transition from one octave to the next.
Re the soft pedal adjustment: I'm still figuring out what that does. The pedal effect is now pretty subtle, so I may want to split the difference.

It's really a pleasure to work with you: it seems like the piano needs to be tuned every 4 months, so I will see you at least by June.

Take care,
Laura

********************

All of this using the original EBVT and tempered octaves. No two octave sizes the same as another. Unequal temperament. She was afraid to use the soft pedal only because it over shifted and the hammers were slightly brushing neighboring strings, creating an odd effect. Now, she has to learn to use it all over again. I will gladly drive over 100 miles to serve this customer whenever she wants me, as long as I can fit it into my schedule.

Visited an old friend/client, and found her piano to be heavily smelling of smoke...but otherwise in good shape after 8 years!...house fire...gave some free advice, and promised her it'll air out, eventually.

Tuned 5 today, and drove 135 miles round trip. Sold a full Dampp Chaser system for a Yamaha C2 pitched at -24C overall. To get to this piano, I climbed into a house elevator with my new client, and shot up 3 floors to an unbelievable room overlooking Lake Michigan.

Did a Service Bond tuning for our local Yamaha dealer in another town.

Listened to some loud music while in the car. Headphones for ear protection in homes, and CD's cranked in the car. Makes sense to me!

Got a total-gas-happily flipped out-smile because of my new netbook with Tune-Lab loaded on it...did ALL my updates in the field and arrived home to zero work at the home computer as a result.

Noticed that TuneLab has Bill Bremmer tunings pre-loaded on it. Considered trying it but got scared I'll like it and then Bill would be right. No, I decide I can't allow this. (just kidding Bill, I'll give it a whirl once I know what I'm doing with the new program!)

Life is good.

RPD

I'm not a tech, but I absolutely love love reading this thread!!! Sometimes It makes me wanna learn the trade and become a tech myself. I hope this one just keeps running.

Interesting thread.....
Had half a relaxing day...with a bit of work.
Just got back from a week in Sitka AK where I serviced the Steinway D they bought last year and then was on duty for the Sitka Jazz Festival....
While I was there I did a couple of private calls and some outreach in two of the community's schools....Taking an upright apart, throwing (gently) the keys to the kids and then pretending not to know how to put them back in....got some great questions....90 5 and 6 year olds....

Had the privilege of presenting 2 clinics at the Jazz Festival on Saturday entitled 'The innermost workings of the Steinway Grand Piano'...again, some great questions and a lot of pride as the funding for this piano was raised from public donations in this community of less than 9,000 folks.

I'm happy to report that the piano sang and soared under the expert hands of Marco Diaz, pianist with the John Santos Sextet...one of the headline acts who had made the long trip, like me, from the Bay Area....An amazing festival...I hope I get the chance to go back!

Tuned an Evestaff Miniroyal. First time I've been presented with a short piano and felt confident approaching it. Got the temperament right after half an hour, was very careful checking 5ths, 12ths and 17ths to balance the octaves and achieve a good stretch. The top and bottom are now perfectly balanced, with nice progression all the way up for all the intervals. The customer watched me all the way through and I explained what I needed to be doing, and about inharmonicity. Very satisfied customer at the end! A very pleasing job.

Zero again for me today. Home sick still.

Been aligning strings and hammers, tweaking dampers, getting ready to level strings.

Jerry, gettin' much snow? been snowing all day here, only about 4-5" so far.

So what heck do you have anyway? That old eye and a-- h--- problem? can't see gettin your a-- out of bed to go to work?...jk

Hope your over it soon.

Les

Got a recurrence of bronchitis and a fever with coughing from my toes on up. Doc says lots of that going around. It's a relapse of what people had earlier. Seems weird to me. Never heard of that one before. Always thought once you had it, you were free for the year and if you caught something else, it was a new bug. Guess not.

Yeah, snowing quite a bit here too. I hear the roads are slushy and not good driving. I get to stay home, post here and annoy you people instead.