Frustrating Saturday

[Avery Todd]

List,

I had something happen today that in the last 20-25 yrs. of doing concert 
work,
I've never had happen before. Tuning for a concert for the Houston Symphony, I
had a string break about 4 notes above the bass string break! :-(

In addition, 4 trichord dampers in that area were "messed" up. Whether because
of the string breaking or because they already were, I don't know. I just LOVE
the Steinway horizontal grain damper felt!

Thankfully, the string that broke left two strings on each note and there 
was very
little difference in the sound, so I didn't replace the string. And I was 
able to
make the 4 dampers damp pretty well. I'll find out tomorrow when I go there 
to tune
again. But I'm going to take damper felt, glue, etc., etc., whatever I 
might need
to replace damper felts, just in case.

I was doing this at the request of the regular tuner for the Symphony, 
who's out
of town this weekend. Sheesh! Over 12 years at the university and I've 
never had this
happen!

Hey, you regular concert techs can have it! I don't want it! :-) The artist 
is Anne-Marie
McDermott playing a Mozart concerto and I was told she's very easy to work 
with, so I
have my fingers crossed!

Just venting a little!

Avery Todd

P.S. Why does Steinway have such short damper felts on a concert grand? 
They couldn't
be more than 5/8" long! If that!