nursing home blues (slightly OT)

Conrad Hoffsommer hoffsoco@martin.luther.edu
Wed, 15 Oct 2003 07:12:22 -0500


Patrick,

At 07:39 10/15/2003 -0400, you wrote:
>On Tuesday, October 14, 2003, at 08:21  PM, Ron Nossaman wrote:
>>>If I'm asked back I'll have to be more specific about my needs...and 
>>>about the definition of the word "available".
>>>Tom Sivak
>>They don't have a clue. The most common questions I get are "Do you have 
>>enough light"
>
>And the answer, today at least, is: "No." It's raining heavily and the 
>skies are pretty darn dark. And the only illumination for that half of the 
>room is the piano lamp which gets put on the floor as we open up the piano.
>Other than urging the owner to scrounge up a floor lamp, or pulling a lame 
>clip on utility lamp out of the car, I'm wondering what the rest of you do.
>Patrick Draine


I've learned to work in extremely dark conditions (i.e. by the Braille 
system) for tuning. I used to use my little Brinkmann to see enough only 
enough to insert my temperament strips, as there is usually enough light to 
make out the tops of the tuning pins.  Now, however, when I have to do the 
concert hall at 0430 and even the cleaning crew is not around,  I find that 
I can tune quite well by the light of the laptop running my RCT.

[BTW, I once finished a tuning in pitch dark after a car ran into a utility 
pole outside. It took a little longer, but at least I didn't have to come 
back to finish...]

Recently, I did purchase a closeout Pelican Versalite from a photo shop. It 
makes you look and feel like Cyclops when you slip it on your forehead(but 
nobody else is around, anyway:) It is also great for grand damper regs even 
in "good" lighting conditions.


Conrad Hoffsommer - Music Technician
Luther College, 700 College Dr., Decorah, Iowa 52101-1045
Vox-(563)-387-1204 // Fax (563)-387-1076

- Education is what you get from reading the small print. Experience is 
what you get from not reading it.


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