An Exciting (?) Weekend

[Diane Hofstetter]

>
>
>Avery,
>                Where was your gardian angel over the weekend.
>Roger
>

Roger,

His gardian angel was right there if he survived all that :-)

Diane
>
>At 01:35 PM 08/02/00 -0500, you wrote:
> >   List,
> >
> >   Just thought I'd share about my weekend. We just finished
> >the International Piano Festival here at the University of
> >Houston with artists Abbey Simon (faculty), Misha & Cipa
> >Dichter (New York) and Ursula Oppens (Northwestern University
> >faculty). Concerts went great and everyone seemed to really
> >enjoy them.
> >   The fun began last Monday when Abbey's Baldwin was flown
> >in from New York (Baldwin Artist). A freight company picked it
> >up at the airport here and brought it to the university, then
> >my regular movers came to take it out of the road case and set
> >it up.
> >   We found the fallboard off both its "hooks" and the key slip
> >also off the cheek blocks. Also, I found that the keys of app.
> >the top two octaves or so, were off their front rail pins and
> >shifted to the bass end. Of course, I couldn't remove the action
> >because of a bunch of hammers being up in the air.
> >   When I got that corrected and tried to remove the action, it
> >was wedged somehow and refused to come out. Underneath the piano,
> >I found that the soft pedal lever that actually shifts the
> >keyboard was wedged up tight somehow. When I pulled on it,
> >something sort of "clunked" and then the action could be removed.
> >   I saw that the key strip on top of the keys behind the fallboard
> >was broken, which is why the keys were out of position, I'm sure.
> >I glued it back as good as possible (some wood was missing around
> >the screw hole), called Baldwin C & A in New York and told Danny
> >about the problems and suggested he have the factory send me a
> >new key strip, which was done.
> >   Because of the types of problems, his belief was that the piano
> >had taken a fall somewhere along the line. After examining the road
> >case, I totally agree. It's built from a very hard neoprene material
> >of some kind, with metal banding around all the edges and across the
> >long sides and on wheels. It had very probably fallen over flat with
> >the piano in it, up side down. There was obvious damage to the case,
> >with the metal edging pried up/bent in a couple of places and scrape
> >marks along the black sides of the case, as if a fork lift had been
> >used to pick the case back up.
> >   Then early Saturday morning, I went into the hall and discovered
> >that the heating had gone off overnight and it was then 63 F. in
> >the hall. The Dichters even had to practice that morning in that
> >cold. The physical plant called in a technician and they were
> >finally able to correct the problem. Then it eventually got up to
> >around 75 F., which was "too" much! I called again and they managed
> >to regulate the temp. some more. But it sure caused havoc with the
> >tunings. They both went fairly flat, so I had to basically do pitch
> >raise type of tunings to try and settle them down. Really fun when
> >you only have 3 hrs. to tune two pianos together. This is one
> >particular time when I was really glad to have the SAT III.
> >   Then on Sunday, I had to tune completely aurally for the final
> >concert because my SAT locked up somehow and refused to come back
> >on. But that's another story. It was good for me to tune aurally,
> >anyway.
> >   Ah, the life of a "concert" technician (whatever that is). :-)
> >
> >Avery
> >______________________________________
> >
> >mailto:atodd@uh.edu - Work
> >
> >mailto:avery@ev1.net - Home
> >
> >Avery Todd, RPT
> >Moores School of Music
> >University of Houston
> >Houston, TX 77204-4201
> >713-743-3226
> >
>Roger Jolly
>Saskatoon, Canada.
>306-665-0213
>Fax 652-0505

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com