Light & Lovely Voicing (by Revlon)

[Ron Torrella]

In early April, a good friend (and customer) of mine will be giving a concert in Zahle,
Lebanon in the auditorium of a building that used to be a hotel. He'll be performing on a
new Yamaha (170cm - G2?) that he's been told has fairly dead-sounding bass hammers.
Ultimately, it would be good to have a technician work on the piano before he arrives, but
piano techs are far and few between in the middle east (and nobody's offered to pay me to
do the work), so my friend is faced with either performing on the piano with the dull
hammers, cancelling the concert or doing a bit of tech-ing for himself. (Anyone know if
there are any Yamaha techs in the Greater Lebanon/Israel/Syria area who might be able to
do a Service Bond or some warranty work??)

I should mention that I've given this fellow some instruction in regulation and repairs
largely because he does a good deal of performing in out-of-the-way venues where little,
if any, technical assistance available. (One has to learn to be self-sufficient in
situations like that!) He's been doing some minor repair work on his own piano under my
direction and does a pretty good job considering he's more a pianist than a tech.

Anyway, I've been showing him the finer points of touch-up voicing (using keytop/acetone
solution), emphasizing that he should always make sure he has the approval of the owner of
the piano before he does any doctoring. (I'm under the impression that the proprietors of
these Middle Eastern "concert house" venues *expect* the pianist to be able to perform
simple repairs and even tune the piano! So, he's not likely to run into much conflict.)
The problem we're up against is how to transport keytop solution without risking spilling
the stuff.

With that concern in mind, I had a thought about an alternative that I wonder if anyone
else has considered or tried (probably in a dire situation). It seems to me that
fingernail polish is composed, largely, of butyl and/or ethyl acetate and nitrocellulose
(lacquer), along with a host of solids for coloring. I haven't looked, but I would assume
that a clear nail polish would *lack* most of those solids. Even so, if one found the
right, very light color or clear fingernail polish and thinned it down with either an
acetate or acetone fingernail polish remover, would the tone production be very different
from the result of using plain old lacquer and lacquer thinner?

If anyone has any bright ideas on how one might safely (and legally) transport keytop on
an airline, I'm all ears. It looks like I'll have to put together a "first aid kit" of
sorts for my friend.
--
Ron Torrella, RPT
Piano Technician
University of Michigan             "Dese are de conditions dat prevail."
School of Music                                         --Jimmy Durante
734/764-6207 (office/shop)
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