Great Opportunity, Lousy Piano

Avery Todd avery@ev1.net
Sat, 21 Sep 2002 19:29:45 -0500


Hi Terry,

Welcome to the world of concert (type of) work! Glad you had your running
shoes on! :-)

Avery

At 08:01 PM 09/21/02 -0400, you wrote:
>Got a call from a client and the University of South Florida to tune a 
>small Kawai grand in the theatre for a concert being given by the Florida 
>Orchestra (the BIG local orchestra - Jahja Ling is music director). I had 
>tuned the piano previously. OK piano.. I was looking forward to this as I 
>had never tuned a piano for the big local orchestra! Wow! Cool!
>
>Got there at 8 AM today. Where is the little Kawai? "Someone at the music 
>school took the Kawai and gave us this Steinway!" "Pretty good deal....yes?"
>
>1960s L. Teflon action. Clickity clank. Massive deader-than-a-doornail 
>killer octave section. Bass strings WAY tubbier that the WORST old upright 
>I have ever heard (I checked the bass bridge to see if it was attached - 
>it seemed to be) - they were honestly WAY worse than absolutely horrible. 
>Action regulation horrible. Half the hammers not checking and bobbling. 
>Rep springs way tight. Hammers with 17mm long flat tops (that's like a 
>good (or bad) 3/4-inch long). Most hammers only hitting left two strings. 
>And this thing is the centerpiece for the orchestra!
>
>I only had a couple hours before they were going to use it for rehearsal. 
>Thank God I had super glue and duct tape! I pitch-raised it to A440, tuned 
>it, filed the hammers, shimmed the action frame for hammer alignment, 
>roughed up the hammer tails to make most of them check. Added a little 
>drop to some just so they would not double strike. That was all I had time 
>for. This thing needed a good 200 hours of work - at least.
>
>And then I RAN out of there before anyone with the orchestra saw me. I 
>didn't want anyone to know that I had anything to do with that piano. What 
>a fiasco. I suggested to the dude to get his little Kawai back or get 
>ready to spend some bucks on the sad L.
>
>That was my morning. Major old uprightitis in the afternoon.
>
>Terry Farrell
>
>
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