Question of the Month

[Susan Kline]

At 09:18 AM 4/26/97 -0500, you wrote:
>Susan,
>
>   Alright now. That's not fair. Don't leave us wondering. :-)
>
>Avery
>
>>Reminds me of the notorious Baldwin D "mouse piano" at Newport, Oregon. The
>>mouse won the first round, tied the second, lost the third.
>>
>>Susan Kline

All right, Avery, just didn't know if anyone would be interested.

Luckily, the pianist arrived a day early to try out the piano at the Newport
Arts Center. There was a little trouble playing the bass notes, and there
were a few dampers singing -- like 2/3 of them. The mouse had a liking for a
soft nest, and had made it of damper felt and hammer rest rail felt, on top
of the keys in the bass.

I arrived to tune, and found the piano had shrunk by 2 feet, and _badly_
needed voicing in the treble. I did what I could, and got rewarded when the
pianist leaned down from the stage and hugged me. (Who says this job has no
perks?)

The Center had sent the piano away to be fixed, and it came back well fixed.
I could have told them you didn't need to send the whole thing for a set of
damper felt, if they'd asked ...

Two concerts later, I arrived to tune, and saw little wisps of felt hanging
down from the split wedges. I asked if they had used traps or bait?  "well
.... uh ... no." "The little mouse doesn't go away all by itself!" I told
them. I raised a RUCKUS, with the welcome side effect that communications
were improved.

I thoroughly cleaned everything, imagining a pianist looking up during a
cadenza, and seeing a mouse turd there (for inspiration). The dampers still
worked (BARELY, in a few cases). Novel way of trimming below the string line ...

Round 3 took three weeks. The little guy emptied the traps twice and lived
to try again. The third time he wasn't quick enough. ONE -- LITTLE -- mouse.

Locals have called it the "mouse piano" ever since.

--Susan

Susan Kline
skline@proaxis.com
P.O. Box 1651,
Philomath, OR 97370

"If you don't get all you want, think of all you don't get that you don't want."