Water/hammers/steam/voicing

[Wallace F. Wilson]

I also tuned for Geo Winston at the University of Charleston WV, and was
greatly entertained by his pages of directions.  It seems that either he
knows just enough to be dangerous and a pita, or he consulted with
someone whose remarks he cast in stone.  Personally, I'm not about to
take a piano and greatly alter the voicing for Geo Winston, just to try
to go back & get it right after the show.  He's a pounder.  Gee, isn't
it great to get to work for someone who knows so much more than the
usual line of concert artists who pass through?  :)

Brad Smith wrote:
> 
> Thanks Keith, Del, Gina, Roger, Ed, for your help regarding voicing
> requests by visiting artists.  I remember tuning at Berklee in Boston
> for George Winston. He had sent a 12 page contract describing how the
> piano was to be tuned. I remember it even spelled out that "...in the
> temperment, F should beat against A at 7 beats per second..." It was
> quite a lot of fun for all the techs to read. It also specified that
> "...the hammers should be 'voiced' with the right side(treble) hard, and
> the left side soft...", so as to create an even more dramatic effect
> when using the shift pedal.
> I wondered at the time if we should tune only the white notes, or the
> whole piano ;)
> The punchline was that I never had time to get in there and change the
> voicing.  I did the tuning before he came to rehearse the night before,
> and his representative called our office the next day to say he was very
> happy with the piano!  Who'da thunk it?
> 
> Brad Smith, RPT
> Manchester, NH

-- 
-----------------------Wally & Kay Wilson

                             Wilson Piano Service