Tears of Joy (non-technical, long)

[Edward Carwithen]

Way to go!  Yes, I've had a couple of those jobs, and it puts my feet in
the clouds too!  Congrats....

Ed Carwithen


At 12:05 PM 5/18/98 -0400, you wrote:
>Dear Listmates --
>
>Have any of you found yourself crying tears of joy when asked to tune a
>console?
>
>After some recent postings on the more human side of piano service, working
>in general, and just going about the business of being human, I began to
>think about some of those moments that have made my work around pianos
>worthwhile just for the *love* of it.
>
>More than once, some sweet elderly customers have called to ask me to
>service their pianos.  In 2 of these cases, I didn't know until then that
>the customer was still living -- earlier appointments had been cancelled
>because of hospitalization for some life-threatening condition,
>complications, whatever.
>
>Friday afternoon's call was one of a slightly different kind.  The
>"customer" was the 70-year-old Gem Theatre in Detroit that had literally
>been picked up and moved about 5 city blocks within the past year.  (The
>business manager quipped, "This is known as taking the show on the road."
>the first day the building started to move aboard 576 truck tires.)  There
>had been numerous threats of demolition, numerous delays, and there were
>probably numerous questions about its surviving such a move.  The call was
>from the business manager, asking me to tune the console [that had remained
>in the building during the move], because they are going to hold auditions
>there in a couple of weeks.  Opening Night is scheduled for early
>September.
>
>Perhaps at this point my career has come around in a full circle the past
>almost-7 years.  The Gem Theatre was my first true *concert* job, shortly
>after it reopened after many years of being boarded up and shortly after I
>moved to Michigan to work at a dealer.  I thought at the time that
>particular call was a one-shot deal, that I was just filling in for a more
>seasoned technician.  The next day I learned that I was the technician of
>choice, which meant servicing the piano (a nice grand) twice a week for the
>next 2 years.  It was in there where I did all of my experimentation with
>newly-learned procedures picked up at regionals and conventions ... and it
>was in there that my skills improved rapidly ... and ... ... and yes, I got
>referrals from there to other theatres that were being restored, and then
>on to other performance venues.  The only reason why the job ended was that
>the next show didn't use a real piano.
>
>Once again, the Gem is being restored.  Once again they plan on using a
>real piano.  Once again I'll have the opportunity to experiment and master
>concert-level techniques.  Once again, we ALL get lucky, and it's all out
>of love.
>
>Don't worry, there is money in this too -- full rates no less.  Here, it is
>simply nice stuff to have around.  I once heard a Japanese proverb that
>essentially said, "Promote happiness, and the money will follow."  A book I
>read some years back was written on the premise that the best jobs are
>those in which you can get others to pay for your fun.  Some of you might
>argue that a checking account doesn't know the difference between a concert
>grand and a special spinet, but the *love* thing like what I have going at
>the Gem gives the intangible "value-added extras"  money cannot touch.
>
>ZR!  RPT
>Ann Arbor  MI
>diskladame@provide.net
>
>
>
Ed Carwithen
Oregon