List We've all dropped mutes while tuning the treble of a vertical and had to retrieve them from below. I think I drop more than most of you, so I'm pretty good at finding them. At least, I've had lots of practice. OK, usually it's pretty simple. Take off the kneeboard and there it is, laying on the floor of the piano. On occasion, I have to go looking for them. I've found mutes between the plate and the soundboard, laying on the bass bridge between the strings and the soundboard, hanging from the end of a key, or action part...you name it, I've found it. Until today. Now, before I go on, don't tell me to tie a string or piece of yard around the end of the mute. I'm not gonna do it. I'd rather go hunting in the bottom of the piano than have to deal with a string hanging off the end of the mute constantly getting caught on hammer tails, or bridle wires, or whatever. This is my own personal hell; let me create it and live in it. Thanks, though. So I removed the kneeboard and propped it up against one of the legs of the piano. I looked EVERYWHERE for this mute and it was nowhere! It had simply vanished! And I spent a good ten minutes looking for the darn thing! Finally, I had to give up. So I picked up the kneeboard, and slid it back over in front of the piano and began to lift it to put it in place, and..,there it was! The mute was on the kneeboard! It was llaying on this little ledge created by a horizontal piece of metal that transversed the entire kneeboard. I've seen these on music desks (Chinese pianos) before, but never on a kneeboard. I'm not sure of the purpose of this piece added to the back of the kneeboard, but I suspect it is to give the piano more ballast when it is eventually used as an anchor. They are forward-thinking, these Chinese piano manufacturers. In the case of this particular piano, no better use could be made of it than to throw it overboard. At any rate, that's my puzzler and the solution, too. Hope you're all having a nice, relaxing summer, as I am. Tom SivakChicago -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20090605/40acb1a3/attachment.htm>
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