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Joined: Nov 2007
Posts: 6,828
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IIieaaaaaaaaaaaak! Yeah, and he does all of this in 80 degree weather besides.
Jerry Groot RPT Piano Technicians Guild Grand Rapids, Michigan www.grootpiano.comWe love to play BF2.
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Joined: Jun 2003
Posts: 32,060
Yikes! 10000 Post Club Member
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My uncle Stumpy liked to pet crocodiles.
Semipro Tech
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Joined: Oct 2006
Posts: 2,677
2000 Post Club Member
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2000 Post Club Member
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How'd Stumpy get that name? Bob says they're gentle little buggars. 'Course he could be blinking one eye and I can't see it through the computer.
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Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 4,864
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The small gators (6 foot and smaller) run or swim away from you....and the larger gators (up to 12 foot) lay on the bank and give you the eye as you kayak past them. Humans don't look like food on a kayak so you are relatively safe. Don't take your dog with, however. Dogs look like food to a gator.
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Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 4,475
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4000 Post Club Member
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Just wanted my PW friends to know that I "tuned" a piano that wasn't mine for the first time, today. It was a Chickering spinet that reminded me of a cross between a 70's Kimball (cheaply built) and my Lester (lots of string issues). Lots of false beats in the upper tenor. Very stiff tuning pins. The soprano tuned up really nicely, though. There were some oddities that I don't quite have the words for, but someone wadded up and stuck a felt punching inbetween F#3 and G3 (I think it was) which were wound bi-chords--effectively making them wound singles. G#3 and A3 were wire bi-chords. So, the felt punching helped the sound of the transition between F3 and A3. (I know this, because I took the punching out and tuned up the wound unisons, there, to see what they sounded like. Ick!!!) Also, there was a mini needle-nosed vice grip on the hitch pin of the F#3 wound bi-chord. Weird. I couldn't figure that one out. Ideas, please? I discovered it when I lost my wedge and took off the knee board to find my wedge. After carefully checking things out with a flashlight, I took off the vice grip to see what would happen, tuned the piano, then put it back in place, because I wasn't sure what purpose it was serving, but trusted that the man who put it there did so for a reason!... Did I leave in a sponge? A hemostat? The customer was happy (a soprano), and I accompanied her on a couple of tunes afterwards. Fun stuff!!! That's the report... --Andy
I may not be fast, but at least I'm slow.
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Joined: Jun 2003
Posts: 32,060
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The vice grip was probably there to hold the string in place while it was being replaced. The punching was to mute the new string while it stretches.
Semipro Tech
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Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 4,475
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4000 Post Club Member
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Thanks, BDB! Is two years long enough for a string to stetch, or, does it have more to do with the number of times it's tuned after it's replaced? (Serious question~~ the customer said the piano hadn't been tuned in two years. I'll have to ask her if the tech had to replace a sting at some point...)
I may not be fast, but at least I'm slow.
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Joined: Oct 2008
Posts: 219
Full Member
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Full Member
Joined: Oct 2008
Posts: 219 |
I'm tuning nothing but presidential, chairman and high roller suites in the Venetian/Palazzo hotel for the next two weeks. Last year it was pitch raise and tune but this year the fine tune makes the job a lot easier. I've been doing 5 a day and trying to do more but I'm aurally exhausted after 5 units. Cleaning and check out the player system as well. Good money but no ambition to answer phone messages at the end of the day. Nice view of the strip from the 50th floor.
David Chadwick RPT Newark, Ohio 1931 Mason Hamlin AA
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Joined: Jun 2003
Posts: 32,060
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Thanks, BDB! Is two years long enough for a string to stetch, or, does it have more to do with the number of times it's tuned after it's replaced? (Serious question~~ the customer said the piano hadn't been tuned in two years. I'll have to ask her if the tech had to replace a sting at some point...) I think it will depend on both time and how close the string was kept to pitch. If you are going by there, you could arrange to drop by and see if it has fallen, and pull it up if it has. You could also pick up a free vice grip while you are at it!
Semipro Tech
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Joined: Jul 2009
Posts: 2,667
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Andy,
Congrats! Any chance of your posting a recording? (Or sending me one via PM, e-mail etc.)
Autodidact interested in piano technology. 1970 44" Ibach, daily music maker. 1977 "Ortega" 8' + 8' harpsichord (Rainer Schütze, Heidelberg)
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Joined: Oct 2012
Posts: 11
Junior Member
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Junior Member
Joined: Oct 2012
Posts: 11 |
New customer for tuning a 1996 Yamaha C1, and... she wasn't home, called her and she told me where to find the key, met up with friendly dog, found piano covered in photos and knickknacks, bench had stuff on it, too. I talked to the dog and started clearing the piano. Customer arrived home.
Piano was a half step flat, give or take. Pins with barely enough torque to hold. Yanked it up and tuned. Oh, the customer said some keys were sticking so I removed 5 pens, 2 pencils (one of which managed to be resting between the capstans and parallel to the keys, eraser facing me with majority of the pencil further back from the capstans), a very large nail clipper, a piece of notepaper, one rubber band, a dime, a guitar pick, a fishing hook, part of a pen clippie-thingie, and an unidentifiable plastic part slightly smaller but shaped like a shot glass.
No more sticking keys.
I talked with the customer about the pin torque, about a humidifier/dehumidifier system, and showed her how to remove and replace the fallboard!
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Joined: Jun 2003
Posts: 32,060
Yikes! 10000 Post Club Member
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Yikes! 10000 Post Club Member
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Two shows coming up in two rooms in the same building. Steinway D and Bechstein E, both holding well since the last time I tuned them.
Semipro Tech
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Joined: Nov 2007
Posts: 6,828
6000 Post Club Member
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6000 Post Club Member
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Hah! I got outta the house today!!!!! I went and looked at a Petrof grand about a 6'. My biggest problem???? I am constantly forgetting to take note of the model number! Serial number, I almost always get but the model I constantly forget! I'm getting OLD like BDB! hehehe!
Anyway, I am preparing an estimate for the grand on hammer filing, regulation and all of that fun stuff! Yippeeeeeeeee! I'm freeeeeeeeeeee! Well, sort of free.
Jerry Groot RPT Piano Technicians Guild Grand Rapids, Michigan www.grootpiano.comWe love to play BF2.
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Joined: Feb 2012
Posts: 270
Full Member
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Full Member
Joined: Feb 2012
Posts: 270 |
My biggest problem???? I am constantly forgetting to take note of the model number! Serial number, I almost always get but the model I constantly forget! I'm getting OLD like BDB! hehehe! Could be the lingering affects of the anustheezher.
Lavender Piano Services Established 1977 Tuning, Concert Maintenance, Rebuilding & Restoration
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Joined: Jul 2009
Posts: 543
500 Post Club Member
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500 Post Club Member
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No piano tuning for me the next few days. I'm attending the Missouri Music Educators Association Convention this week. Hearing a lot of GREAT choirs and learning a lot of stuff.
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Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 4,864
4000 Post Club Member
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4000 Post Club Member
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Posts: 4,864 |
Tuned a D and a B and two harpsichords before 8am.....and took the rest of the day off.
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Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 4,475
4000 Post Club Member
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4000 Post Club Member
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Andy,
Congrats! Any chance of your posting a recording? [...] What? And leave myself hanging out to dry, naked, on the PW clothesline of tuner infamy?!? Are you crazy!?!? Actually, I thought about bringing my digital recorder with me, but I didn't want to be distracted by "thinking" about a recording while I was tuning, so I opted out this time. I wanted to focus on the task at hand. Maybe next time... Thanks for asking, though! --Andy
I may not be fast, but at least I'm slow.
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Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 4,475
4000 Post Club Member
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4000 Post Club Member
Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 4,475 |
Andy,
Congrats! Any chance of your posting a recording? [...] What? And leave myself hanging out to dry, naked, on the PW clothesline of tuner infamy?!? Are you crazy!?!? Actually, I thought about bringing my digital recorder with me, but I didn't want to be distracted by "thinking" about a recording while I was tuning, so I opted out this time. I wanted to focus on the task at hand. Maybe next time... Thanks for asking, though! --Andy All right, Mark R.! Different day, different piano~~AND a story! So, my normal bread & butter business being a little slow (as it always is at this time of year), I went to the church this morning to tune the Yamaha G1 in the choir room. Bill had tuned it in the spring (I posted a recording of some hymns at the time in another thread ), and now the piano definitely needed some attention, so I thought I'd get some practice using the Accutuner on something that wasn't a spinet. I got there a little ahead of 9 o'clock, and was pretty well started when the pastor knocked on the door and greeted me with a request. "Would you like to play for a wedding today?" Mind you, I am just a guy that plays two tunes every third Sunday of the month--not really what you would call a practicing church musician. But there was a mature couple who had known each other for quite a while who had decided to tie the knot in a very small ceremony and the pastor thought it would be nice, since I was there, if I didn't mind, if I could play a few things to set the mood and mark the occasion. How could I say no? I said, "What time?" He said, "10 o'clock, in the sanctuary." So the ceremony included the couple, the pastor (officiating, of course), the church secretary and janitor (as witnesses), and me at the piano. I am so glad I went to tune that choir room piano, today! I did shed a tear, but I always cry at weddings... At 10:20, I was back to tuning the piano in the choir room. Three hours later, Mark, I made you a recording. I had trouble getting a nice unison at D5 (I'm sure you'll notice). There are probably other things people will notice, too. I was pretty happy with it, though, on the whole. This piano actually lets you tune it. So, this sound file has: 1) the pipe organ effect (such as it is with me as the tuner), 2) Kabalevsky Prelude and Fugue Op. 61, No. 1, played a little frantically and sloppily, and 3) a snippet of the second section of the Gigue from Handel's Keyboard Suite No. 13, joined in progress by a fade-in edit, taken from practice that I recorded later in the afternoon, but included here because of all of the nice fourths and fifths. The playing of it is, yes, sloppy. But the harmony is... nice and springy! Recorded with a Tascam DP-004 digital recorder with the built-in condensor mics. https://www.box.com/s/euwzu6s4c9o8v7dyg1oy Comments welcome! Oh, also, I did solve a buzz problem--a crayon on the soundboard, hiding in the shadows under the bass strings. I'm planning on going back tomorrow morning to see if I can get the D5 to behave, and also to see if anything else sticks out at me, so if anyone has any suggestions about anything, I'm all ears! Thanks! --Andy
I may not be fast, but at least I'm slow.
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Joined: Feb 2012
Posts: 270
Full Member
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Full Member
Joined: Feb 2012
Posts: 270 |
So there I was two days ago in a town 40 miles out and popped in to a long-time customer church to catch two pianos that are overdue for regular yearly tunings - a fairly large church for that area.
Secretary: "Have you talked with the pianist?" odd question
Me: "Yes." (I had standing orders from the last phone call to the previous musician not to worry about calling, just to "tune what needed tuning when it needed it.")
Secretary: "There is a new pianist. You will need to check with her." unknown baggage in this situation
Me: "I have been tuning here regularly since 1983. Does it matter that I speak with the pianist?" not huffily I don't think
Secretary: "Yes. You will have to speak with her about the pianos. I would think that falls to her." (secretary now appointed to gate-keeper)
Glory, hallelujah! I was sure glad that I had two to do in another church in the 40-mile away town to jump over to.
Fast forward to today. Here I was calling, writing letters, seeking to engage a contract at a church that I had already been serving for 30 years. Ah, the little things that make self-employment so sssssweeeeeet!
Lavender Piano Services Established 1977 Tuning, Concert Maintenance, Rebuilding & Restoration
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Joined: Nov 2007
Posts: 6,828
6000 Post Club Member
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6000 Post Club Member
Joined: Nov 2007
Posts: 6,828 |
This will make Jurgen happy... I'm back to work again as of this past Saturday when I started tuning a whopping ONE piano!!! WOOHOOOO!!! I got up to tuning 2 pianos yesterday and today, double woo hoo. I sure am tired though. Maybe on Saturday I'll move it on up to 3 a day and see how my body reacts. It sure does feel good to be back to work again! Yippeeeeee!
Jerry Groot RPT Piano Technicians Guild Grand Rapids, Michigan www.grootpiano.comWe love to play BF2.
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Piano
by Gino2 - 04/17/24 02:34 PM
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Piano
by Gino2 - 04/17/24 02:23 PM
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