Again???

[John Musselwhite]

At 02:42 PM 29/06/02 -0700, Ed C. wrote:

>It must be some phase of the moon or something.  Last Friday I had the 
>wierd Eterna piano with 75 notes or whatever..

I actually don't mind the Eternas I tune compared to some of the Korean and 
Chinese pianos out there. 75 notes is a little strange, though I've seen 85 
note ones. They aren't exactly inspiring, but all the Eternas I've seen up 
here were surprisingly well-built and well-regulated. None of the owners 
were willing to upgrade them, so maybe Yamaha built them too well.

>Today it's a "Chopin" piano.  only 63 notes, and only two strings per note 
>for the whole piano except one string per note from D#3 down to the 
>chopped off bottom of the piano.  Actually for such a "toy" it was pretty 
>well put together.  Owner's father had bought it so that he could carry it 
>around with a blue grass band.  It was small enough and light enough to 
>carry anywhere.

It's the same piano as my "Cameo" spinet I would think... except that it's 
64 notes. The top and bottom octaves aren't there. Some people call them 
"riverboat pianos" or "chapel pianos". It is actually a reasonably nice 
little spinet that is perfect for some applications. Mine is sitting to the 
left beside my desk with a pair of Radio Shack PZM mics in it connected to 
the digital workstation on my right. It is small and fairly light and mine 
has been everywhere. I rent it out occasionally and its paid for itself. 
I'd certainly never sell it and would love to find another one.

There's a well-known country music composer that has one and he's literally 
written hundreds of certified hits on his so they have their use. 
Incidentally, his is called a "Melodigrand" and has an aftermarket mandolin 
attachment in it but otherwise it's identical to the Cameo and Chopin 
versions from what I've seen.

>Hadn't been tuned since 1978, and was only down about 5 cents.

With only two strings per note they don't drift a lot usually. 
Incidentally, I keep mine with either a Moore or the Piano Teacher's 
Delight temperaments in it, though I experiment with others since it's so 
easy to tune. If you find one for sale it's worth buying it just for that.

It may be my imagination, but it seems that HTs seem to work better in this 
piano than ET does and that the HTs like the Moore work better in it than 
they seem to in spinets with trichords. Could that be possible?

>I wonder what tomorrow will bring!  Ain't life interesting???????

Today brought me a Sherlock Manning console in the Alzheimer ward of a 
local nursing home. The piano was donated to the home, and probably hadn't 
been tuned, cleaned or even opened for 30 years. It was filthy and 50 cents 
flat, and I had to do the pitch correction and tuning by ear since my SAT 
was broken in the car accident Wednesday night. It worked out rather well 
with the first pass not quite as good as the SAT would do it, but quite 
acceptable even though the tenor break remained pretty ugly, if I may use 
that oxymoron. It seemed like every patient on the floor was there watching 
me, which was probably a nice break for them from the exercise machine 
Infomercial that was on the big screen when I arrived and the acne creme 
one that was on as I was finished. Why they had those programs on the TV 
for them I will never know.

When I was finished I got a nice round of applause for "Somewhere Over the 
Rainbow" and the "Rondo ala Turka". I always play the Rondo, because a day 
without Mozart is like a day without sunshine and these folks looked like 
they needed some.

While I was working I overheard one very elderly lady tell the nurse that 
her father had been a piano tuner and they always had a piano at home, 
though that was all she could seem to remember.  I would have liked to have 
spoken with her more about it, but she didn't have much to say after that 
other than "that was nice".

As for what tomorrow will bring, this is the Canada Day Weekend up here 
north of the 49th, with Monday being Canada's 135th birthday. To all my 
Canadian friends, Happy Birthday Canada, and to those south of the border 
and especially those who were in Chicago and have several days worth of 
EMail to catch up on and may be reading it on this day, Happy 4th of July!

                 John

John Musselwhite, RPT    -     Calgary, Alberta Canada
http://www.musselwhite.com  http://canadianpianopage.com/calgary
Pianotech IRC chats Tuesday and Thursday nights and Sunday Mornings
http://www.bigfoot.com/~kmvander/ircpiano.html