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I made a set of wounded strings for one old dulcimer, and tuned a very old no name upright, which was a real pain. Also have looked an old worthless upright with the oberdampfer action, for which the owners think that it is very worth, but I had to disappoint them.

Three scheduled, two of them canceled so I'm left with only one. The lady has two kids, and asks if I mind if they watch. Before thinking I said "sure". I'm tuning the temperament with one kid on either side of me when F3 buzzes. Suddenly Mom is next to me as well, and fortunately it was a quick and easy fix, however, now I've got Mom and two kids all hovering over me for the rest of the temperament. The the girl and Mom leave the room, and I see a quick flash - it's the girl taking pictures of me from the balcony! I can hear the boy moving around behind me for the rest of the tuning.

I finished up and called the home schooled kids over, and explained how the piano works. Mom and kids appreciated the info. Lots of kids are home schooled these days. The tuning was referred by their piano teacher, who teaches on ......a DIGITAL piano.

Me, I tuned a Yamaha M1 PE first. Hammers were bobbling so I raised the hammer line a little bit and then took up lost motion. Problem solved.

Then, went out to tune a very crappy little Kohler and Campbell spinet man, what a lousy piano that one was. Even though I tuned it a year ago, it still tuned like crap. While I was there, they wanted me to look at another piano that had been delivered to their garage a few days earlier. Turns out this one was a Story & Clark with a spruce sounding board. A cracked one at that. 4 of them. One right along the bass bridge apron. The bass bridge also had split pins. It hadn't been tuned in probably 25 years, hammers were badly worn, 1/2 tone flat or more. Well, you know the rest... I condemned that one too. Sad. If only people would have taken better care of the thing, it could have been a decent little piano yet.

From there, I went to lunch. After that, I went and got me a nice, relaxing massage.... Mmmmmm. Then, brought my car into the garage for a few repairs. Ick.

I'm glad to hear you got one before you went to the garage.....and not at the garage....hee hee

Hey wait a minute, that's not a bad idea. Maybe mechanics could make more money if they had a professional massage staff. Get people all softened up before they give them the bill.

Went for a ride while my car was being serviced, and got soaked and frozen in the process. Tuned a Carl Ebel upright, then a Sohmer 46 from the 90s. I was going to tune an Everett belonging to a friend of mine, but after 3 years, it was really close to being in tune, and right at pitch, so I regulated the lost motion and drank a couple of glasses of Pi(ano?)not Noir.

Cut wood, breathed a lot of sawdust,and drove my daughter all over town for three hours.

Dan Piano Tinkerer

I sat in the office ... made a lot of phone calls to costumers ( why did I decide to take a dead Latin instead of French at school plenty of years ago ? ) ... delegated the bass winding work in the workshop ... answered emails ... boxed about 15 bass string parcels ... shipped them by UPS ... 7 inside Germany ... 5 inside Europe .. 1 to Japan ... 1 to New Zealand ( I wished I could deliver them by myself ) ... and 1 to the USA ... YESSSS :-)

Best regards
Gregor

Today, tuned a nice little Kawai RX-2, refused to tune an OLD upright about a 1890 year, forgot to write down the name brand of it and now of course, I can't think of it either... Showed up to find some idiot had half filed the hammers, did a horrible regulation job, installed long and short and long and short bridal straps, left it 1/2 tone flat, broke and did a lousy job of fixing 3 wires. It still has a broken hammer. I explained the situation to him and then said, get another piano and please, don't call the person back that you had last time okay??? Then, came home for a lunch and headed back to the college for a concert tuning. Dat's it!

Tuned a 1970 Whitney spinet this morning that hadn't been tuned in a very long time...don't laugh and don't cringe! (I know you did, anyway). It actually tunes well and has a clear tone. Has an original Dampp-Chaser system. Put in a new water tank liner, and installed new humidifier pads. They've been watering the piano, but there were no humidifier pads in it...that's a first.

Worked tuning in a nursing home this afternoon. 3 uprights in 3 different dining rooms. Was tuning the ancient Hobart Cable upright on the 4th floor. I heard the door to the dining room open...then this woman came up to the piano and started playing some bass notes. "Oh, great!", I thought. Then I looked at the woman. It was my neighbor who lives down the road from me. She was at the nursing home visiting some people. We both laughed at the fact that the only time we see each other is in the nursing home.

As my dad got older, well into his 60's and 70's, he continued tuning for nursing homes. He enjoyed it, knew many of the people residing there as many were previous customers and he loved playing the piano for them when he was finished tuning. The older he got, the more some of the nurses thought he lived there and was just trying to sneak out when he asked for the code to the doors or to the elevator. After a few times of having to talk someone into actually giving him the code to get out of the Alzheimer's section he finally decided he'd better quit tuning for them or one of these days, he'd be stuck there forever.

Tuned a fairly worn out Hamilton Baldwin console in a cold, damp little church in the hills of West TN. The place smelled of raw sewage. I could only feel sorry for the church folks if that smell was there come Sunday.

I had an interesting comparison experience today.

I did a warranty repair on a "slow fall" fall board mechanism for Kawai on a K-18 that's been regularly serviced by a guy who has an incredibly huge network of clients. He's cheap, so people use him. However, only a year after tuning the piano sounds miserable, and the damper mechanism was extremely noisy. The piano is only 7 years old, and it sounds like it's on it's last legs (which it isn't, it just needs some TLC!) Scheduled a tuning appointment for next month.

Tuned a Kawai k-18EA in the afternoon that I've serviced regularly since they bought it 8 years ago. Let's just say there is a stark difference between someone who cares about the pianos and the customers versus someone who is just there to turn a few pins and get a check.

Tuned a year old Yamaha P22. The institution got the free tuning from the dealer but wanted me, their regular tuner, to do the regular tunings (nice!) The highest treble damper was cut so that it damped only 2 strings. I had never seen that before. I don’t see many Yamahas. It seemed like a good idea for transitioning to the undampered notes, but two or three dampers done that way would seem better yet.

Jeff,

That is typical of Yamaha to do that with all of their dampers. It transitions into the upper treble easier that way into the no damper zone. If they did 2 or 3 dampers that way, people would complain that they are not shutting off correctly. I've had many complaints that one damper was not shutting off right but when I showed them that was how it was supposed to work and that it only covers a part of the three strings, they were contented with that.

Today was spent concert tuning for the Gilmore Festival in G.R. I woke up at 6 AM, I HATE MORNINGS. Was at the college and tuned the piano from 8-10 AM. It was a Steinway D, was delivered yesterday and was changing a lot during the tuning at first.

Yesterday, the humidity was 10% LESS than it was today. It rained most of today. In watching my hygrometer, the temp went anywhere from 69-73 degrees. The RH went from 50 % down to 42 and back up to 47 %, back down to 42 % etc. It just kept varying. Very unstable atmosphere. I raised AND lowered pitch on this piano and then went over it a 2nd and then 3rd time to get it to stay put. It tuned fine but, kept wanting to drift. The pianist came in and practiced for 4 hours this afternoon. I was thrilled with that because it gave it a chance to get pounded on and to settle down! After all, it had only been barely 24 hours since it was delivered!

I met with him at 3:50, voiced 3 notes, actually, 2 surrounding notes as those were just a tad louder than the one he was complaining about and were the real problem not the other note. Then, I spent one more hour re-adjusting the darn pitch AGAIN. It went sharp as did the RH. HEAH. He plays it very hard but, during the performance, it stayed put. I was on call all day today, had to attend the concert and stay through intermission.

You know the best part of all of this? I told him where I would be setting. The first time he walked out, he glanced over just to see where I was. The 2nd time, he walked out during applause, he glanced over my way again just to make sure I was still there and then gave me a quick nod. The 3rd time, it was intermission. He had to walk back in twice to bow because people would not stop clapping. Both times, as he turned my direction to bow, he looked directly into my eyes before he bowed, as if he were thanking me. How cool is that huh??? As he walked past me during the intermission, I mouthed, "EVERYTHING OK?!" HE gave me a very broad smile and mouthed back OK!!!! With a very pleased nod...

Was I stressed all day long about this? Yes. I always am. Was it worth it? Every darn bit of it after he did that for me.

It was fun listening to the music he was playing, checking out all of the unisons, octaves and all that to see what if anything was wandering. Nothing did. Then, he'd blast out some more as I was thinking, GEEEZ MAN, don't break a string!!! Yet, it all held wonderfully.

They brought in a brand new Steinway from N.Y for this event. It is a bit rough in the prepping department but it satisfied the musician which is all that matters. Our pianos are in storage while our Fine Arts Building is being renovated... I probably already said that but, I can't remember... Time for bed, I'm whipped.

Cool!

Day off today, so I hiked in the Orlando Wetlands. After about 3 miles I came across this crane and gator. The crane came over to me as I was taking pictures of the gator. The gator gave me "the eye" as I tiptoed by him!

Last jobs before leaving for a couple of weeks, a Steinway D and a non-descript upright that should have been retired years ago, but it is a private customer of very long standing.

Today I replaced all 88 lifter gromets on a spinet piano, regulated the keys and, of course, tuned it. In the after noon I had 3 studio uprights at the High School to tune.

If any of you tune at a highschool, avoid lunch time.

It depends on the school for me. Of the several school districts for which I tune, there are only 2 where I can be positive I won't be disturbed if I'm asked to tune during the school day. All the others are "after school".