mysterious ways.

[A440A@AOL.COM]

Greetings all, 
   Ok,  God works in weird ways.  No sooner had I finished writing the last 
post, I got a call.  It was from a student, a music major at Vanderbilt, that 
had, unfortunately, been in Vanderbilt Psychiatric Hospital for the last 
month.  She was admitted before Christmas for acute depression,and was still 
there.  
   There was a piano in the common room, and she really wanted to play it, as 
she said, it was very theraputic to be able to continue rehearsing her pieces 
and it was also very theraputic for the others on the same floor to have live 
music.  However,  she said that the piano was so out of tune it was 
unplayable, and there were several notes that didn't work as well as two 
broken strings. The pedals had problems,too.  She commented that it may be 
the drugs that she had to take, but it just didn't sound like a piano. And 
she just didn't want to play it like it was. 
   She had requested that the hospital get it tuned and was told that there 
was no budget for something like that, (and here I need to rant about a 
university with a $2,000,000,000 ENDOWMENT, that is Billion!!! not being able 
to budget $100 for maintenance of a piece of equipment that a whole ward full 
of kids with problems could benifit from, while they can spend $1000 per day 
on "experts" to tell them what kind of medication is best for their patients, 
 geez,  it turned my stomach and saddened my heart).   She was calling to ask 
if I knew someone that could donate the tuning and repair.  I told her I 
would see.  
  I went back in the shop, trying to finish a pinblock, but this really 
disturbed me so much that I finally said to hell with waiting for some 
"donor",  I had to do it just to live with myself so I packed up my tools, 
and went over there.  Guess what,  I was staring at at......KIMBALL console.  
As dense as I may at times be, the irony was NOT lost on me.
    Ok,  I know when I am beat, so I began rummaging around for a Paps mute 
and tools to tighten the let-off rail.  I remembered why I hate these things 
while I was fighting to get the new string down between the bass and treble 
wires.  Put powdered Teflon on all those squeaking trapwork pieces,  bent the 
dampers back in the vicinity of where they should be, bent some balance rail 
pins around so the warped keys would play, and then pulled my SAT out to see 
where we were. 
    It didn't even register!  Got my fork out and found where I was. 150 
cents flat!  <sigh>.  So,  I made an FAC, dialed up a Vallotti, gave it a 15 
cent boost and ran through the piano.  I sounded like a steel guitar player 
on Quaaludes, but I had it tight in 15 minutes. Then I went back through and 
tuned it.  Even went over the break aurally, (y'all clap now, you heah?)
   It didn't change my mind about the quality of these things one bit.  It 
was a cheap excuse for a piano, but on this job, that was beside the point.  
These kids were so starved for something to be intrigued by that I am really 
glad and gratified I did this.  As I left,  she was in there playing a 
Schubert piece, and I noticed that there were at least a dozen of the 
patients that had quietly sat down and were listening.  
    I guess what I learned this afternoon is that there is a place for 
everything, and though my shoulder is sore from the alien posture that tuning 
this thing required, and it wasn't a very good tuning since I am so out of 
practise tuning the vertical pins, there is a room full of kids with more 
problems than I ever had that got something out of it.  So,  to all of you 
techs that service these things regularly,  my hat is off to you. If I 
disparaged any of you for your trade, it was not intentional and I apologize. 
 
Regards, 
Ed Foote RPT