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A little drive around Japan. Nice!

Sunday...seldom work a Sunday, but today I put together a restored pump organ...and watched two foxes out my shop window...life is good here in Michigan. Played my guitar and took a long walk. The stars are falling down its so beautiful, cold and crisp.

This weekend I met with friends from England in their concert tour that included Kalamazoo, and had a great discussion with them about our little piano shop in the countryside. We talked about strange piano and organ stories, and I think they would have probably, just then, rather come to our cottage and sat around our woodstove than gotten back on their bus. Sometimes I think what we do here is magic...it seems so to us...

RPD

Cool drive! We were in Japan for 10 days in February 2007 for vacation. What a great place to visit, I think. We had a blast and the food was nummy!!!

Started off with a Baldwin L grand in a church, followed by an old open-faced pinblock Hadorff upright. After that, a Howard spinet (raised 30 cents). From there, a quick service call to unstick two keys on a newly-delivered George Steck console, and then another call to pull up a new bass string that slipped. Finished off with a 50-cent pitch raise on a 1925 Chickering grand. Nice full day.

Hey Jerry,
Yes it is a cool drive. Where did you go when you were in Japan; did you just do the tourist thing in the major cities or did you get a chance to get out into the smaller towns and villages?

We had a Japanese exchange student stay with us for one full year. I taught her English adding a few funny words that were not correct too. Like, here in Grand Rapids, we have a Meijer store. Pronounced Meyer. I told her to pronounce it My---JER. I want to go to My-Jer. She came home and said DAAAAD you did it again!

One day, she came home and said, dad, kids laugh at me. Why Tomoe? Dad, what did you teach me wrong now? Nothing, this time! What are you saying? It is when I ask for a "[censored]" of paper. I broke down laughing. Tears streaming down my face. She said, what so funny? It is spelled sheet right? I couldn't answer. I had to stop laughing first. I explained what she was actually saying and what it meant. She about crapped herself. Especially after I told her to go and ask her teacher tomorrow for a sheet of paper! I managed to get her to pronounce it correctly however after many tries.

Some of the hardest words to teach and get them to understand are words like Dam or Damn. Sheet, because they want to say it as I said above... Burn, burned, burnt, burning, barn, born, been, ben, and many more. They all sound the same to them she said and of course, some of them do.

She lives in Gifu. Pretty much right in the center of Japan. We had our own private guide, interpreter and all. We visited lots of places, many, many restaurants too. Shopping malls too. I love their foods. I said, Tomo, I taught you English for 12 months, you can interpret for us for 10 days. Anytime dad! She said. And so, she was our interpreter.

We went to Nagoya, to Kyoto and other places too. We stayed over night in Kyoto sleeping on the floor for the experience, the old fashioned way. Actually, many of them still prefer to sleep this way to this day. I think we saw about 50 Buddha's too.

We even happened upon two geisha girls as they were walking in full uniform down the street. Normally, they do not allow pictures to be take with strangers but, Tomo asked them and they said OK! Nice people! We had a wonderful time!

The plane ride sucks though.

I have a customer whose last name ends in -eij, which is a Dutch spelling. The family are interesting people. Her husband is a MacArthur fellow. She bought my uncle's piano with some of the prize money.

I can't speak English well. An expression in right and left made a mistake in me, didn't it?

If everyone comes to Osaka City in Japan, please contact me.
I know a lot of good restaurant.
Sushi Tempura Ramen (Chinese noodles)it's like a pasta.
My American acquaintance loves the Ramen. so he eat it everyday.
he came from Flor.

Looks like no more baseball games on the backstage monitors this year!

Tuned a Yamaha M 100 with disk recorder, a year old Mason B (short grand) with damper issues, then went to a senior assisted care apartment building to tune a Hallet Davis (recent Chinese version) upright and an again Brambach BG. listening to the seniors discussing watching the world Series. Worked as fast as I possibly could so that I could get home in time to watch the game.

Jeez, BDB, enjoy the moment. I've been a Giants fan since they moved here in 58, and this is the first time they've won a series. They didn't beat around the bush this time. YEEEEEEEEAAAAAH.

One Heintzman & Co 6ft. grand, one Heintzman & Co full size upright, one Lesage full size upright, and one 52 inch grand by Zimmerman. Yes really it is that short….4’6” or something?

A very nice, slower, relaxing week for me. Loving every second of it.

Monday: Tuned a Kawai RX-7. Looked at at old Washburn upright. The client is contemplating fixing verses replacing. Did not tune. Gave an estimate anyway. Tuned a Steinway M. Has loose tuning pins, but holding, needs rebuilding, she wants done, contacted my rebuilder and she wants refinished.

Tuesday: Voted! Tuned a Kawai UST-8. Tuned a Baldwin Acro not tuned since 1986. A Groot tuned it last. It was at 438-439. Raised to pitch. That's it! Play time boys and girls!

Voted! High turnout too. I voted 10 minutes after polls opened and I was #41 in our little Podunk polling place. Then did some maintenance work on a pair of Yamaha consoles at a church: Reshaped hammers, voiced, vacuumed keys, keybed, and interior on both. After that, a private tuning on an old, 1926 Kranich & Bach grand (ex Welte). Needs rebuilt, but not a bad sounding piano at all.

Now gonna sit back and watch election results all night.

80 degrees in the SF Bay Area today...

Tuned an older but nice C-3 Yamaha, a real beater old Wurly spinet, an old G-3 Yam, and a Yamaha P-22 with a pitch raise.

Tomorrow I'm going to San Francisco to tune an older Baldwin and an older Steinway M. I may go early to see the World Series Champion victory parade. I don't know if I'll be able to avoid it even if I want to. The crowd is predicted to be a million people! Holy Cow!

Mixed bag today. First a piano playing gig for an hour for a benefit. After that, headed off to a college to fix a dead not on a D; simple fix (loose hammer flange screw). After that, a 125 cent flat 1978 Kohler & Campbell console that probably had never been tuned. From there, an old Schroeder upright that's still kicking.

Tuning a 78 Kohler and Campbell is next to impossible. The number of individually beating treble strings one is likely to encounter in those monsters is overwhelming. I far prefer the Korean K and Cs.

Tuned a Kawai console, looked at an old upright, Baldwin Monarch. Some DOPE tooner worked on it. Should have had a camera. Part of the bass bridge cap was split off and gone. The top half. All of the last octave or so in the upper part of the bass were missing bridge pins. I mean, ALL OF THEM WERE GONE! Guess what the fix was? Come on guess! OK, you give up already???... Nails. Thick nails. It worked, to a point. The was no angle, you know, the S between the bridge pins, it was pretty much straight.

The hammers were only half filed. Regulation was yucky too. Bad job.

Then, tuned a small Yamaha grand. Then off to the college. Was told E-2 string was broken on the Steinway B. I was relieved to find that it was actually, Eb -6 and E-7 that was broken.

I was told that A-3 was sticking too. It was not... So, I checked all of the A's. . Nothing sticking. So, I played all of the notes as fast, as slow and in between that I could. Nothing sticking.... Probably sticking now though. Then, did a fast run through touching up the tuning

But, I at least got a chance to let my son install the broken strings today. I showed him how judge the proper length of string so that both tuning pins would get the right amount of coils. The same amount as the others around it.

I showed him how to get the becket in line with the others, how to line up beckets on both sets of tuning pins. How to give and take on the strings so the other tuning pin had a bit more string to line up the becket. He found that fun, interesting and he did a great job. I had to finish it up by tightening up the coils and stuff but, oh, crap, I just remembered, I forgot in all of that to seat the new strings on the bridge!!!! OOPS!!! Oh well, I have to go back in a day or two to touch up the new wires anyway, we'll do it then. If I can remember. Note to self. What was that you were supposed to do again?

Had a “Tuner’s Choice” appointment. The customer had two pianos, one they had for a while and one given to them and wanted my opinion as to which is better. The one they had was a Sterling spinet bought from a college that was a practice piano. The one given to them was an art deco Knabe console that had light home use that I guess was from the 30s. It was not a tough decision, the Knabe won. It had an interesting scale. The break was at D3-D#3 with the next four notes being wound bichords and the four after that unwound bichords. The tone was even enough that I had to look to see which I was playing when checking progressive thirds. There was some small discrepancy going on that I couldn’t quite figure out, but it was so minor that it really didn’t matter. All the fifths had good tone which is unusual for a console. I wish the console manufacturers of the seventies had learned from these guys!

Some piano makers from the 70's and 80's were so concerned with foreign competition and shrinking sales, they forgot the product has to sound and play like a piano.

Got my 3rd tutoring lesson in tuning yesterday, working aural ET, feeling pretty good so far. While in the shop, I resolved a couple of grands with buzzes. One was a S&C with the PNOscan strip installed, seems it was buzzing from lose screws. The other was a Yam with a lose lid guide plate. Felt good to find both.