Tears of Joy (non-technical, long)

[Z! Reinhardt]

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