shake, rattle & roll

[Z! Reinhardt]

Use your Imagination!  This piano will sound like a:
1] noisy bird
2] vacuum cleaner (try 2 or 3 vacuum cleaners running in unison at close
range)
3] TV being ignored
4] gang of fussy children
5] child learning to sing
	....

I usually tell the kids they have to sit absolutely still and quiet so the
piano can talk to me.  It's just like being at the doctor's office when the
doctor has to listen your insides.  The little singers will get their
chance to sing with the piano when I'm done tuning, and the tools are put
back in their crib.  (You have to try to see things from a kid's
perspective.)

As for the adults, I try to explain to them that there is a lot more I have
to listen to within each note than just the note corresponding to the key,
and that I would appreciate as little extra noise as is possible.  If they
fuss over the idea, then I just tell them to use their imaginations as
above.  This almost always makes them stop dead-in-their-tracks in absolute
bewilderment.  "What do you mean by that?"  Once again, I try to explain
what I'm listening to, and how that is being interfered with by the noise
of something else.

Nowadays I can put up with a lot more noise thanks to a SAT.  Every once in
awhile, the noise proves too much for the SAT but that's pretty rare.  I
think the worst situations in recent times have been 1] a prominent rock
band warming up (they somehow thought that by being on the other side of a
thin black curtain they wouldn't bother me while tuning up guitars and
turning up the amplifiers) and 2] a heavy downpour on the tarp that
separated the piano from the elements at an outdoor festival.

Z! Reinhardt RPT
Ann Arbor  MI
diskladame@provide.net

----------
> From: Susan Kline <skline@proaxis.com>
> To: pianotech@ptg.org
> Subject: Re:  Re: shake, rattle & roll
> Date: Thursday, June 11, 1998 4:59 AM
> 
> At 10:53 AM 6/11/98 EDT, you wrote:
> >
> >In a message dated 6/11/98 11:34:08 AM, Jon Page wrote:
> >
> >>
> >>Two worst sounds to hear while tuning:
> >>running water, rustling newspaper.
> >
> >And pet birds,   you tune, they chirp,  you stop, they stop,  
> >
> >T, Ayers 
> >
> 
> Too true about the birds, especially in the high treble.
>  
> In restaurants or clubs: refrigerators and/or vending machines humming
away.
>  
> It's true that customers seem to clean a lot when I come. I wonder if
they
> do it all the time when I'm not there ... I put up with the running water
> in the sink (in spite of the white noise), also the automatic dishwasher;
> and the garbage disposal I can wait out. But when they start the vacuum
> cleaner and turn up the sound on the TV I stop and ask them to postpone
it.
> When kids try to play along (always in the deep bass) I tell them they
can
> play all they want as soon as I go. (Mothers must love me for this.) 
> 
> Does anyone else get very, very young children who sing and match the
notes
> you're tuning in the treble? A sign of talent, especially when they get
it
> right, but very hard to tune through.
> 
> Susan
> Susan Kline
> P.O. Box 1651
> Philomath, OR 97370
> skline@proaxis.com		
> 
> "The closest you will ever come in this life to an orderly universe is a
> good library."
> 		-- Ashleigh Brilliant