Ear Plugs Revisited

[John Musselwhite]

At 08:30 AM 11/11/2000 -0500, Newton  wrote:

>Kristin, try the ear plugs.  And I mean now!  They will
>filter out extraneous noises and will preserve your
>hearing.  If OSHA learned about how loud pianos can be
>during tuning they would pass a federal law prohibiting
>tuners from tuning without safety equipment.  I have

On Friday morning I was scheduled to tune in a new French Immersion School 
here, so I made the appointment early enough to be out of the music 
room/lunchroom before the kids arrived. Unfortunately when I got there I 
found a battered old Young Chang U-116 that had obviously been neglected 
inside as well as out. Hammer centres were drifting, regulation was poor, 
the tone was really ugly, it was 25 cents flat and when I opened it up I 
found it contaminated with mouse droppings.

I got it cleaned up, the drifting centres repaired and had tapped in the 
bridge pins (some of which  would have buried themselves in the bridge with 
a light tap if I wasn't being careful) and  touched up the regulation a bit 
and I was ready to tune. Just then the doors opened and the kids came in 
for lunch and they were not going to be quiet!

I slipped in the ER-15s again (I used them while vacuuming and bridge 
tapping of course) and started the pitch raise. By the time I'd finished 
the PR and tuning the kids were all gone and I hadn't even heard them 
leave! I pulled the plugs to check the unisons and the volume of the air 
conditioning alone was enough to deafen me! It sure didn't seem that loud 
earlier!

Without the ear plugs I would have spent the morning being aurally 
assaulted by the school's HVAC system, my little screaming vacuum, 
hammering on the bridge and about 200 exuberant kids in addition to 
listening to the lovely sound of a Young Chang in the morning. My brain and 
ears would not have been happy for the rest of the day. As it was both the 
PR and tuning went quite nicely and I didn't even notice the kids leaving 
for classes again.

To anyone faced with situations such as these the ear plugs are fantastic 
and I cannot recommend them highly enough! Don't forget to wear them when 
vacuuming or doing other "loud" maintenance too!

                         John

John Musselwhite, RPT    -     Calgary, Alberta Canada
http://www.musselwhite.com  http://canadianpianopage.com/calgary
email: john@musselwhite.com    http://www.mp3.com/fatbottom