The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes

There is a new movie where the hero is a piano tuner.

A tuner in literature

The whole way home he says “maybe” “maybe” “maybe” to himself, like a piano tuner at work, depressing the same key over and over again until it seems to vary slightly with each iteration, until the note starts to sounds subtly different, either because the string inside changes slightly or perhaps the world around it changes slightly at the moment the hammer strikes. Each time different connotations of the word emerge like secret frequencies revealed from a deep, rich vibrato. He takes a shower, smokes a cigarette, puts a pot of water on for farfalle, and the whole time he is making a song out of the one note.
—Charles Yu, “32.05864991%”

I hope this was someone's very first stringing job. 

Book about Ben's mom

An article in the San Francisco Chronicle reviews a new book about Jessica Mitford, the famous writer whose son Ben Treuhaft (above, right) we know from his Send a Piana to Havana.

In a back hall at the Radisson, a chart to guide business ethics. 

Jerry tunes pianos at Pianodisc

click on image to see other photos

Jerry says, "I've tuned some bad pianos before, but these are the worst."

Bob Proul tuned this piano before me. On the service record, note the gap between the last two tunings: 1972 to 1991. On the last tuning, he said that it had been so long that he needed to "soak the keys." He took the keys home and soaked them in who knows what. 

This label was inside a customer's piano. The idea of a piano dealer/recording studio evokes an era long past. 

A really ancient keyboard chart. 

Singer's piano car up for auction

Read article

HoustonChronicle.com - Police nab piano-playing burglar

"Sept. 28, 2006, 1:11PM

Police nab piano-playing burglar
Reuters News Service

AMSTERDAM, Netherands - A burglar who broke into a house in the Dutch town of Tiel on Wednesday night could not resist playing the piano he found there after ransacking the living room, police said Thursday.

Unfortunately for the 20-year-old thief, his music woke the owner of the house, who called the police.

'The owner didn't register whether the playing was any good or not. He was more worried about the state of his house,' a police spokesman said."

Iran News - Iranian artist: No support for piano production

LONDON, October 12 (IranMania) - Iranian music teacher Hamidreza Rezaii complained over the lack of official support for the mass production of his invention, a quarter-note piano, MNA reported.
[read full article]

Building a Profitable Piano Tuning and Repair Business

A guy selling a course in how to succeed as a piano technician.

icWales - Mystery man has no name, age or nationality

AN alleged burglar, dubbed "the new piano man", has baffled police who have been unable to work out the man's name, age, nationality, or even his language...

read entire article

These are imitation ivory heads from www.webpiano.com. I got these on eBay but you can order them directly from their website. They sell them in different lengths and colors. These six cost me $4.50 (including shipping) and they are good enough for average repairs. 

The best thing ever for cleaning key tops (watch out for painted sharps, though--- it will take the paint off). 

PianoDisc warehouse burns

Read the news article about the disaster here.

Bob and Linda, personal trainers from Bodyconcepts, came to our chapter meeting to help us handle the problems resulting from years of tuning. Here Linda models the posture of someone tuning an upright. They showed us some useful stretching exercises. 

Email from Yvonne Ashmore

Hello Mark,

Just saw the "elastic band pedal spring repair" so thought you might be interested in this story:

I was called out to tune a Steinway O which I have not seen since 1973. He told me one of the keys didn't work. When I pulled the action, then the wippen, I found rubber bands wrapped around the repetition lever and the body of the wippen and a rubber band which had been cut and tied between the repetition post and the jack. I thought to myself, "this looks vaguely familiar". Sure enough, when I checked my customer card from 33 years ago I had made this note: "repetition spring broken, did not have replacement, used rubber bands to get customer through that night's party, told them to call me back later to replace spring." Those rubber bands had held up for three decades! This time the wippen got a new repetition spring!!

Yvonne

Here's a great classic comic (Powerhouse Pepper) that features a piano gag.

Ever feel like you just don't fit in? 

Well.. I think I see your problem...

Interesting key repair

No list of ~Items Required to repair a broken key~ needs to include tin snips and sheet metal.

Letter from Yvonne Ashmore

Hi Mark,

We recently did a bushing job on some sort of Asian piano for Shawn Skylark. The piano must have been fairly new and the bushings weren't really worn, but previous technicians (not Shawn) had evidently overeased the keys. When we removed the bushings the real problem which was causing sluggish keys became apparent as shown by these pictures.

Thought you might be interested.

Yvonne

Bad pedal repair

An elastic band is not an acceptable replacement for a broken pedal spring!

This is a square grand in a Land Park home. It's one of the few I can remember in Sacramento that has been competently rebuilt. It looks really nice. 

Terry Miller's Finish Restoration

Terry Miller showed how to easily restore an old finish with a modern variant of tung oil. It applies easily with a rolled-up cloth and doesn't smell bad. We were amazed at the results.

Kitchen piano

These people designed their kitchen to have a space for the piano. 

Aren't you glad you're in the piano business?

 

If you add up all the cigarette burns I've seen in my whole life, they would still be less than I saw on this one piano. It used to be in a restaurant.

SuperTube

I am trying out the SuperTube lever. It works great on normal to tight pins but I have trouble using it to tune with pins that are on the loose side. The length is a bit much for those. I've always carried a second hammer, so that is no problem. Strut/case clearance is suprisingy good. This is the lever with a 5 degree head and the tip extension. I'm not too sure how I feel about the gold plating though...

A nailset with a plastic cap on each end is ~not~ an acceptable substitute for a pitman!

A poster for the University of Western Ontario piano technology program. 

In my other blog I commented on the "Auto Hitting Done" sticker inside Kohler & Campbell pianos, and how a wag might interpret that as meaning that someone was driving a car into pianos. I told that to Chris, the manager at Larrick Piano, and he told me about a real incident where someone went off the road and drove into a piano store. Read the article here.

Louisiana piano teacher sells piano

Shelley Smith, a former piano teacher who lives in Destrehan, La., recently posted an ad on Craigslist, selling her Baldwin piano "to replace our storage shed and fence." She's been playing piano for 32 years.

"Before Katrina, I would've said it would've been like losing a family member," Smith said. . "But now I have more things to be thankful for than a lot of people."

read the whole article...

This Ludwig upright has an unusual action without the standard backcheck, catcher, or bridle strap. (The bridle strap's function is taken by a rail --- not shown --- that the wippens rest on.)