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

Thanks Ken. Jer, when Kawai became available, I tipped the local dealer off to that fact and he has made it his #1 seller since. All pianos sold anywhere are meticulously prepped. I never see any serious problems. If there are any, they are caught at the dealer level and dealt with before they are put into service.

The synthetic parts are reason enough to recommend Kawai pianos for institutional sales. When I see how well Kawai vertical actions maintain alignment and regulation compared to a virtually identical piano made with traditional wooden parts but with the name, Boston on it, it is proof enough for me that the Kawai is a superior instrument.

I certainly enjoy tuning and maintaining Yamaha pianos. They are easy to service but they do require alignment and regulation service far more than the Kawais. The Yamaha scaling and ease of tuning can't be beat, I must say. Unfortunately for Yamaha, there has been no dealer here now for a few years. The only ones sold here have to come from Milwaukee. If the schools here buy anything at all, it will likely be Indonesian built Kawais.

Just about every Yamaha P-22 sold to our schools here in the 90's had to have the top two double wound strings replaced. I have never, in my recollection, seen a string break on a Kawai vertical with the exception of one which broke when being played but was under warranty. The Kawai KG-2E at the college has had several high treble strings break but never when the tuning hammer was used, only with a test blow. Other than that, I never see Kawais with broken strings or other problems until they get to be very old.

I never thought about pianos today until I came on here late. I watched the two great NFL rivals, the Packers and the Bears, somehow knowing that the Packers would win and go on to the Super Bowl. The Packers made it look like they would win easily, scoring quickly on their first possession but both teams had strong defenses. It took a college game type interception and short run for a defensive touch down to keep the Packers in the lead which they had maintained the entire game.

Aaron Rodgers (quarterback) was the star (scoring the first touchdown) that I and many believed he always could be. In Wisconsin, we have already all but forgotten who Brett Favre was.

Please forgive the final off topic comments but that was a great game and what I did today was make home made chili and cornbread and had a few friends over to watch the game. We did listen to a little boogie woogie on the player piano too. A great time was had by all.

I would say that the way I make chili which has a texture and deep, home cooked flavor, combines ideas from diverse sources, the same as my piano tuning style does. I have never seen a recipe for chili that uses a Louisiana gumbo type roux for a base, made of peanut oil, corn meal, masa corn flour and whole wheat flour but that is the way I make it.

For meats, I used Wisconsin raised Angus sirloin steak, Wisconsin Johnsonville hot Italian sausage and boneless Iowa pork chops (each cut into small bits) for a diverse and flavorful meat texture.

The broth is half beef broth and tomato juice flavored with salt, creole seasoning, paprika, chili powder, cumino, Mexican pepper sauce, Worcester sauce, beef flavor sauce and California brandy.

Other ingredients were, sautéed onions, imported dark red kidney beans, diced tomatoes, locally grown bell pepper and sweet corn.

The color is a dark red but with the green and gold accents from the bell peppers and sweet corn to celebrate the Packers green and gold colors. The grains which are toasted in the beginning for the base provide for a smooth and saucy texture. There is no dominant spice; they all combine into one. One could add more pepper sauce if one desired but no one did. It would have imbalanced the flavors.

The chili itself was a meal but it was served with cornbread which was made with corn meal, masa corn flour and whole wheat flour (the same as the roux chili base), milk, eggs and peanut oil. It was served with hand rolled butter from a Wisconsin Amish dairy farm. If you think butter is butter, it is all the same, you have not tasted butter made the traditional and old fashioned way! It does not even cost more than other mass produced products!

For appetizers, the guests enjoyed green & gold (Packers colors) raw bell pepper slices of both colors, baby carrots and celery with Bucky Badger (University of Wisconsin icon) dill dip (the only thing I did not make myself). All four food groups were well represented.

The beer came only from Wisconsin and was locally brewed.

Saw a robin on Saturday. I couldn't believe my eyes. Then I hear it chirp. My ears, I could believe.

Edit: Maybe that poor bird got here via BDB's super-dynamo snow chucker!

Hi Bill,



This is great and is as it should be. I've stood by at the college and watched pianos being delivered and uncrated on the spot, fresh out of the box which generally means, "no prep work at all prior to delivery."



I do like the Kawai ABS parts and I do like the way the pianos sound when in top form. I guess I'm more disgruntled in that they are arriving in such poor pitch and tuning, and sometimes poor regulation. 1/2 tone flat? That's a bit to much.



I service a lot of Yamaha and Kawai pianos. Most play well and sound very good when in top form. I'll give them both that much. Unfortunately, many of them are not arriving in top form to start out with.

After the sale, I believe the pianos should all be prepped before delivery or at the very least, checked over for problems?

Hey, when you come here in May, maybe you could make your famous chili? You'll be staying here for a couple of nights. Love to try it!

I was thinking you might ask that, Jer and I would be glad to. It should still be cool enough to enjoy it.

Tuned a Rudolf Wurlitzer console at 9 AM. Yipes! Good condition but impossibly flat! Not wanting to heap surcharges on an elderly couple and being wary of possible structural problems, raised the pitch to -20. They said it had not been tuned in 15 years, so go figure. It responded well. They were having it tuned because their grandchildren are now taking lessons and when they visit, they want to play.

The people were nice and the man talked about the Packers game. They had the sports page of the newspaper visible. I talked about the game with him and what winning college and professional football teams mean for the state. They certainly are better than losing teams, to be sure! I heard about sales of memorabilia such as hats, T-shirts, sweatshirts, cheese heads, etc., in huge demand at various area stores on the radio in between appointments.

These items can be quite pricey but they are keeping local businesses and factories operating. I need a new sweatshirt; I think I'll get a Packers NFL Champions one. This is the first time the Packers go to the Super Bowl since 1997. What a game that will be! Packers vs. Steelers!

I recommended to the Rudolf Wurlitzer customers that if their grandchildren are now taking lessons and like to come over to play, that they have the piano tuned at least once a year now. It may be an instrument that they would want to give to one of their grandchildren when they are adults and have kids of their own.

On to a Steinway model L out between two hills out in the country where cellphone reception is spotty at best. It had been partially rebuilt but was very old, a serial number in the 200000 range. It said, "L" on it but I think it must have been an "O". Flat again, dirty, with several sticking keys and loose ivories.

The man specifically requested 1/7 comma meantone! I did not even have it in my new SAT IV but I knew how to quickly program it for that. It had humidity control, so I raised it to the target pitch of -4 cents. I used the FAC program with 1/7 CMT just for the middle and tuned all the outer octaves by ear.

I reglued the loose ivories and eased and lubed the sticking keys (it had new key bushings that were tight). He was delighted and played Ragtime music on it. He was particularly pleased with how the upper octaves sounded. I demonstrated the "pipe organ effect" to him and how all 12 key tonalities each had their distinct "color" with the key of A-flat being the most vibrant.

This time, I charged extra but he also tipped me handsomely. He asked if he could have me again and of course, I said surely.

This made me two hours late for the Baldwin Acrosonic reconditioning scheduled for 1 PM. Unplayable as it was, with loose flanges, dirt galore, gobs of lost motion and shallow key dip, I managed to clean it all out, remove the action, tighten all flanges, file and align the hammers, adjust lost motion, key dip (it had set screws for that which made that easy) and let-off and raise the pitch to -4 cents.

It sounded like a new instrument when I was done about 7 PM. The four boys quarreled at who would get to play it first but the father made them go by age. They were all delighted and the mother of a child who had been visiting and who had referred me to this client, came to pick up her son at 5 PM.

She was happy to see me and told the father that I had "resurrected" her piano as well (a brass flange old upright). Her son was there for a birthday party that I heard the entire time going on upstairs as I was servicing the piano. He had been born on January 24, 2000 and was now 11 years old. You would not believe how much noise a roomful of boys can make with bumps and shouts that can be heard throughout the house, even with doors closed!

Occasionally, a boy ventured down and was wide eyed at seeing the piano all apart. Fortunately, the party was over and they were all gone except the boys who lived there and were doing their homework while I was tuning.

I recall, how at that same, approximate age, I was fascinated with the inner workings of the piano when I saw a piano technician working on the piano at my house. The opportunity, at age 17 to first begin learning the trade, eventually lead me to it full time and into the career that began 42 years ago.

That technician took the time with me to answer my questions, spoke kindly to me and complimented how I sounded when I played the piano he had freshly tuned. My father had come home early that day and was also pleased and paid the technician with a smile.

It was only a Kimball studio, built in the Chicago plant but that same piano is being used now by my father's great grandchildren. It was an investment of $700 in 1960 when I was 8 years old. The experiences I had learning to play it, seeing the technician and then learning to tune and maintain it myself in later years will never escape my memory.

I hope I made some similar impressions upon the boys whose father had acquired the Acrosonic from his family and wanted his sons to learn how to play. I can't get the simple melodies they had already learned to play somehow on the unplayable piano out of my head this evening. Their teacher is one known to me, an itinerant teacher, willing to come to the home to teach young students to play.

It was a day well spent but I missed the first rehearsal of Medelssohn's Elijah with the university symphony chorus. I won't have a problem with that, however because this will be the fifth time I have performed in that work. I know the parts nearly by heart.

That is how I spent my day today. All about pianos and music but with a little Wisconsin sports culture mixed in. I got lunch at a local Quick Trip gas station where there was a lady giving free samples of Wisconsin Bratwurst. She motioned to the rack of where the brats were all ready to go and I went for a couple of them, the fresh bananas that they sell and an energy drink. Left over chili which I forgot to mention that had a Wisconsin shredded sharp cheddar cheese garnish served for a late night dinner.

7:30 am dentist appointment - "Crown lengthen-hard tissue" which is dental speak for "we are going to slice your gum, and chisel out your jaw bone so the crown fits better and stops falling out, then stitch up whatever gum tissue is left". Actually, it wasn't too bad....the surgeon was pretty good!

10am - 80 cent pitch raise on a Baldwin console with corfam butts and hard rubber grommets.

1pm - drive to Merritt Island, evaluate and tune a nice Kawai GS 100 concert grand, circa 1985. Issue - piano is not staying in tune - just tuned last week and already out of tune.

Evaluation - combination of humidity issues (piano in church sanctuary, 25% outside air mix) combined with inexperienced tuner, not setting strings well. Recommendation - Install dual full Dampp-chaser system, cut the heat during cold snaps to keep humidity higher, use piano cover, and find a more experienced tuner.

6pm, photo club meeting and home by 9:30pm

10:30 pm, finished with paperwork.

Three 12 hour days coming up, then a day off on Friday.

An O has a round tail, like an M, while the L's tail is more squared, like a B or D. It is difficult to mistake them once you know what to look for.

Today I tuned my Mason & Hamlin T (ex-RT), which has been on a long-term loan to a choral group. They have changed their rehearsal space, and moved the piano since I last tuned it.

Oh, and I did my sales tax return for last year. It will not solve the state's budget problems, I am afraid.

You pay sales tax annually? It's quarterly here, and they fine you if you forget and are late. No sales tax on tuning labor, till you put a part on a piano, then labor and part are sales taxable. Even a spritz of Protec qualifies as a "part added".

My taxable sales are so low that once a year is all they want.

In our state, it's all taxable; tunings, service calls, everything. AND....we are required to pay use tax also. That tuning lever you buy online from Schaff and didn't pay sales tax on? The state wants 6%.

Noticed a post that I made was deleted. The post that it was in response to was not. Yes, I believe there is a "respect of persons" attitude here.

How's this: I had to pay 14% "Value Added Tax" on the tools I imported from Schaff - although I'm not sure what value I or anybody else added to them by importing them to South Africa...

But like they say here: "Rules is rules!"
(and tools is tools )

Boy, I hear you there Bob. I received a letter from the State of Michigan many years ago asking if I ordered any products from out of State. Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I do, Schaff and other places. From that point on, I had to pay taxes on it so I started ordering EVERYTHING from Pianotek in Michigan instead. Might be a tad more at times but, I'd rather give my money to them than to the state of Michigan. Eliminated that part of paying taxes anyway, the suckers! Nobody else that I talked with here received a letter about that either. Go figure.

Yep, I got a use tax letter a while ago. Went through my receipts and paid it. Maybe I'll get another letter someday. If everyone paid all the taxes they are supposed to, taxes wouldn't be so high.

But the important necessities in PA are not taxed: food, clothes, medicine, heating fuel. Sporting goods (like to get your own food) are not supposed to be taxed, but are.

You're the first one besides me that I heard of that received that letter Jeff. Glad I'm not the only one!

Me three! I also got a "Use Tax" letter from PA Dept. of Revenue. All paid up!

Your deleted posting was a legitimate observation yesterday just as other postings on page #39 were legitimate observations.

I posted this last week in posting #1602160 on page #39



Apparently this is indeed the case as you discovered yesterday. With discussion of opinions posted here now being stifled, the forum has ceased in its function of having a variety of opinions on matters.

Easy to understand why this place is becoming empty of topic ideas and members.

Namaste Jeff.

Dan:

We've had our differences in the past and will probably have more. It is part of the "human condition". I don't think "this place is becoming empty of topic ideas and members", though. I just think the Moderators are acting human also. No one is as unbiased as they think they are. Consider this post:



It can be frustrating, but here is a quote from Abraham Lincoln: ” You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.”