tuning for radiohead

Interesting gig...glad I had my pda/tuner. Couldn't hear doodly.

Very cool, Dave!

Today was once again Shout House day. Four broken strings, one damper that had jumped out of its sticker, and a little hammer height adjustment.

About a week ago I finally started running an ad here on PW; Frank and I had only talked about it for three years...

I can only assume it was from the ad, but I got a call from someone in Denver, asking for a quote for inspecting a prospective buy in Escondido(~35 miles away from me). He had a little sticker shock from my quote(same as a tuning), I then explained why so much. I think he's going to call around and shop. C'est la vie...

I strung the middle section of a grand piano and then went to tune a grand spinet piano. Two years ago, I told the customer the piano was junk, and asked him to replace it. Well, it didn't get any better in two years. I again asked the customer to replace it - it's now making the kid's practice difficult - and I don't want to tune it anymore!

An opera performance at the theater for a San Francisco dance company, followed by servicing several other pianos in the studios at the venue.

I hate these pianos. They key weighting is all off, and when you combine that with the wobbly keys from worn bushings that they usually have, they never play the way a piano should.

And saying that you tuned one is a lie, because that's an impossibility.

Good ammunition for a catapult .

This wasn't Orpheus in the Underworld by any chance, was it? If so, the assistant director and one of the lead dancers are close friends of mine.

No, it is a new opera.

More performances this weekend.

Aha. I just checked, and the Orpheus production is being put on by the SFCM.

As a recommendation, you should see Moby Dick this fall when it comes to the SFO. I was in it down here in Sandy Eggo this season, and a bunch of us are going to road trip to SF so we can see all of what we did. I say it's the most phenomenal thing to ever happen on a stage in the US at least.

Today I delivered a sweet little 1936 Mathushek 5'8" to a friend's house. They had been in the market, and I found this one on Craigslist for $1,600. It needs a little work, and quite a few of the key tops have fallen off(the previous owner saved them all, TG), but it's clean and will function quite well as an instrument.

Tuned a 10-year-old Bösendorfer 214 in rosewood for a Julliard graduate. She is married to the grandson of four friends of mine, one deceased before she ever knew him. I touched up the voicing on it, with the hope that maybe she will get to playing again.

4 today, so nice paced and relaxed day.

Did a tuning and Dampp-Chaser system install. Then came home and worked in the shop on hanging hammers and re-cording some upright flanges.

This morning, my helper and I picked up a couple of 19th century English upright PSO's(straight-strung, bird cage action, 3/4 plate - IOW, junk) so I could cannibalize them before sending them on to a terrible end. They were in the possession of someone who bought a property from a real-live hoarder. They've been in the process of cleaning the place out and organizing all of the stuff for over a month, and are getting ready to hold an estate sale to move out what they can in about a week. They knew the pianos were junk, and just wanted to see if anyone could get anything useful out of them rather than load them straight into the dumpster.

So, when we picked them up today, I thought I'd take some pics of the place.






~180 paintings in this room.














The empty space is where the PSO's were stored.




A granny flat in the back. The rest of the interior pics are from there.

Tuned a little Story & Clark console today. I don't think it had been tuned since it was new in 1964. It averaged 250 cents flat!!!! Too far off to even consider taking measurements for over pull in Tunelab. I did a quick pass getting it close to A-440, and then did another pass using overpull with Tunelab. Thank goodness only one string broke and it was a treble one. Sounded pretty good when I finished. Its a pretty little piano, very nice case in great condition.

Will we ever rid the world of these neglected pianos????

I had a nice relaxing day today. Started rebuilding an old Steinway upright action in shop. Didn't have to put any miles on car, and got to listen to some tunes while working on an action. Very good day.

I have 14 concert tunings to do (minimum) this week for my college plus some home tunings and church tunings as well. I just got home tonight from one concert gig that lasted from 9 this morning about an hour ago.

This particular person beat the CRAP out of the poor piano. I mean that literally!!! And, he broke a string in the treble. # 15 1/2. I replaced it during intermission and touched up a four notes.

I don't believe I have seen someone play the piano that hard, and for almost the entire concert in a very, VERY, long time!! In my opinion, it was more abuse than playing. I was actually surprised that he didn't break more wires. I have to tune this piano again in a couple of days at which time I will see if I can break any more of them myself because no doubt, he has pushed them to their limits.

And people want to listen to this for an entire concert?

The CFIIIs that I tuned Saturday broke a string during sound check, which made them happy to see me. They just break from time to time. It is no big deal. It takes about 10 minutes to replace, plus I had to replenish my carrying-around supply of #15-1/2 wire when I got home. I have replaced a number of strings on this piano, which is about 7 years old. That is par for the course for a heavily used concert grand. But the stage manager had not seen me do it before, I guess, so he was concerned, at least until he saw I was not.

Yeah, I guess they do. Some really enjoyed it. Personally, I didn't think much of that style of playing.

Right, BDB, no big deal on replacing the wire. Took longer to run out to the car and back than it did to fix the wire.

Two today.

Hamilton grand at a church had a squeaky pedal. The helpful staff there doused the pedal and lyre with ...wait for it...WD-40! Joy. Squeak was actually from blown rubber cap on the pedal dowel, down in the cup at the back of the pedal. But, hey...swimming in a bath of WD-40 fixed that right up. Gee thanks. Actually; I pulled it apart, cleaned it, a set a piece of dense felt into the cup for the pedal-dowel to land on. No squeaks now.

Second was a surprise..I've tuned Conn Pianos, but this was something new. How many have seen a 'Hammond Piano'? Next surprise, not...had only been tuned maybe (...the husband says once) or twice (says the wife) in the 37 years since it was purchased. Small spinet. Neat and simple cabinetry. Drop action with rubber buttons in a metal-fork at the rear of the keys. Still flexible. Did adjust pedals, did use Protek on slow hammer flanges, did adjust the lost-motion and pitch raise the little beastie. Actually? Not bad at all for a little piano! But...Hammond???? Really? Only 37-40 cents flat...so I'd go with the wife and believe it was tuned about 15 years ago. We'll tune again in 30 days.

(sigh)

Tuned a Seiler 186 in a huge house in the hills. Belongs to a former CEO/art collector, who has a fair amount of original surrealist paintings, including at least 1 by Salvador Dali! I really need to be more handy with my phone camera...there's a huge, very bizarre painting, maybe 6 x 8 feet or so, right above the piano. Next time.

Nice piano, too. I tune it every 6 months, and it never needs all that much work.

Off to Santa Clara U to tune a few practice room instruments, battling for time in the rooms with eager kids. We missed our window for spring break this year, so there are lots of students there now.

Today I've been back to a job from a while back that I inherited from a local tech. It's a short british spinet, with a drop action that is the MOST DIFFICULT action to get out I've ever had the misfortune to work on. And to further the misfortune, I inherited the job after another tech had replaced the bass pins and strings and 'refelted' the action, which seems to have consisted of replacing some of the (moth eaten) action felts, and regluing the rest. The dampers are the worse - it's almost as if he's transplanted an old set of moth-eaten dampers to this piano.
I've worked on it for three days, finishing what he started and trying to patch up what he's done to make it playable again. I thought I'd finished today but lo and behold, some of the keys stick with the pedal down. I'm going back to replace the nameboard felt, and I'll unstick those keys, then I never want to see the damn thing again!
The worse thing is, the owner has spent a lot of money on it while he has been away travelling or something. It resides at the recording studio he owns. I'm not sure if he's actually seen it since work started, but I'm sure he will have sunk at least £1000 into it by now. The new strings sound absolutely terrible. I don't know what the originals would have sounded like, but there's no fundamental from about F2 downwards, just buzzing and crud.
When I see and hear about some of the experts on here taking the time to rescale and redesign pianos that are restrung, I can't help but wonder if the same could have been done for this one. My guess is that the tension is too high. The hammers were replaced but probably not voiced. Perhaps voicing them would improve it, but that's outside my expertise.
Been there all day, needed to rant

Did 3 more concert tunings today. Did 4 concert tunings yesterday.

I had a Unitized Construction sort of day, even though it's spring.

At my college, Lizst seems very popular, and pianists like to add a fourth "F" to FFF. Recently I had the opportunity to tune a Hamburg D and New York D for two different pianists, playing the same Lizst Sonata one week apart. Both beat the heck out of the piano during rehearsal, giving me a bit more than the usual quick before concert touch-up. No strings broken, but it wasn't for lack of trying.

Congrats. May you tune and get paid for many more.

Amen to that

Dear all !

What I did is to prep a small grand for a concert in a relatively small place with deaf acoustics .

There was 2 singers and a pianist, very nice melodies from Russian music and traditional Jewish songs, illustrating the Andersen
story (the little matchbox vendor)

I tuned the piano so he mixed better and can be heard farther, originally the sound of the piano was as if the instrument where too far from the singers.

Here is the pianist checking the instrument :


https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B6GjQDkF_AMQS3c0T0VzaUszQUk

MP3 file ; the unison is very lightly opened . The global justness is helping them to sound clear, also.

I aim for projection and clarity while keeping enough strength in the attack.

If one think the piano is a Yamaha C3 (2 years old)he understand what can be done with the tone of a piano only with the tuning.
All the best ... thanks for commenting.

Thank you, Mr. Oleg, for that recording. I don't think I've ever heard a C-3 sound quite like that. I think I'm starting to hear what you're talking about when you discuss unison tuning and tone building. What strikes me is the attack (no pun intended). It is beautifully percussive without being harsh. I heard a couple of Bosendorfers at an excellent piano store several weeks ago that had that same attack. They must have a European tuner there? I've been tuning for twenty years and thought I'd heard everything. Thanks again.
Tim