[pianotech] Hole Piano

[Noah Frere]

Wow. This is cool: http://www.gladstonegallery.com/allora_calzadilla.asp

I had 2 hours and 15 minutes til my next tuning. There was a good chance I
needed my whole toolbag, since it was an old beat-up Sohmer many of whose
center pins were treated with alcolhol/water, and I wasn't sure if they were
still free. So it was either go back home for the tools, or go to the
Gladstone Gallery to see this crazy Bechstein with a hole in the center. I
knew that if I didn't get to the gallery, I would probably never make it. I
only had 10 minutes there, but it was worth it.

This pianist was standing inside the hole, playing Beethoven's Ninth. The
pedals were turned around. And every so often he would just start walking
the piano around the gallery while continueing to play.

I counted 32 notes from the bottom intact, then maybe a couple octaves of no
strings to make way for the hole. The result was that whenever he played the
notes in the center of the keyboard, you would here a thump from the hammer
hitting some wood, I didn't look too carefully, maybe it was the damper
rail. One of the large Plate struts was cut away as well.

It's on display most of the month I think with performances every hour
between 11 AM and 5 PM several days a week.

What happened with the old Sohmer? Well I was very happy to see the center
pins still free, however immediately discovered a broken jack. Walked to
Staples for Crazy Glue, which didn't work. I'm so used to Accelerator. I
think they sold a thicker crazy glue but didn't think to get it. From now
on, besides the Tuning Hammer and mutes, the universal screwdriver and
Visegrips, I shall always have CA and Accelerator. Oh - and Ultra Solvent. I
went for a year without the Solvent, then one day last week, Bam, all of a
sudden a huge pad of finger skin was stuck inextricably to something, can't
remember what now. Fortunately I was in a shop where Solvent was nearby. But
I don't know what I would have done without it.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20090204/2b980e1c/attachment.html>