errata

[Ron Nossaman]

One of my regular tuning assignments is the only Yamaha G7 I've ever met.
Yesterday, I lifted the lid off to plug and snug the hinge screws for the
third time. There's about a half pound of duct tape residoo (yes, by gawd,
that's an "s" word!) on the underside of the lid, and four holes where
sundry attempts were made through the years to (apparently) temporarily
affix microphones of varying morphological configurations thereupon. I
can't help but wonder how these hinge screws are pulled out repeatedly
unless someone is closing the lid on an extra fat mic cord strung out the
tail. In spite of the number of times I've tuned this piano through the
years, I've never seen it mic'd, in spite of the overwhelmingly impressive
evidence that it has been - repeatedly. It's probably politically motivated
elves suffering no discernable thought processes that come in after hours
and tape microphones to the lid, then slam it on the cord repeatedly. It's
the only scenario I can come up with that fits the evidence. Even so, since
the piano's in the choir room in the basement instead of in the sanctuary
(CFIII there, with a small mic glued to the soundboard), there's no way
firing up an amplification system on a 7' piano in that small space
wouldn't kill or cripple at least half the room occupants. Perhaps that
explains why I haven't seen the responsible elves. "Responsible elves", now
there's an oxymoron. Then again, they might be using the lid as a
penitential activation mechanism and/or hosanna extractor/motivational
device for neophytes, nimrods, and convert prospects. I sure hope not,
since I fixed the hinge mounts again. Passin' strange.

With the lid off, this piano exhibits a lot of brass too - in the form of
bridge pins. With our steel bridge pins being 0.076", 0.086", 0.096",
0.109", and 0.135" for #6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 respectively, these ranged from
0.097" in the treble, to 0.111" from mid-tenor to low tenor, with 0.119" in
the bass bichords, and 0.147" in the monochords. Still tunes pretty clean
in the treble after all these years too. Anyone got the modulus of
elasticity of brass (whatever flavor) handy? A quick shuffle through what I
have on top here didn't produce anything, and I'm too burned to dig deeper
tonight. I'm curious about a stiffness comparison.

Since the thread title here serendipitously happens to be "errata" (imagine
that!), I'd like to take advantage of the implied breadth of subject to say
this.

Given the fact that it's the end of the year, and the general populous is
swarming in suicidal frenzy like flies before a freeze, and given that this
country has elected itself into a corner of congealed insipidity, instead
of the usual endearing buffoonery with psychotic overtones, and given the
list participants'  work load, with accompanying stress levels
precipitating the need to blow off accumulated adrenalin in random
belligerence and knee jerk backlash reactions, and given that normally
acceptably functioning social survival brain cells tend to go dormant under
these circumstances, this strikes me as an opportune time to wish you all a
merry Christmas and happy New Year.

Now, do you suppose there's any way we can scrape off most of this childish
crap and get back to pianos once in a while?

Ron N