mysterious ways.

[Newton Hunt]

We all too often forget how fragile we all are and that
there are a lot of people far worse off then we.  Well done
Ed and God bless.
-- 
		Newton Hunt
		Highland Park, NJ
		mailto:nhunt@jagat.com

A440A@AOL.COM wrote:
> 
> Greetings all,
>    Ok,  God works in weird ways.  No sooner had I finished writing the last
> post, I got a call.  It was from a student, a music major at Vanderbilt, that
> had, unfortunately, been in Vanderbilt Psychiatric Hospital for the last
> month.  She was admitted before Christmas for acute depression,and was still
> there.
>    There was a piano in the common room, and she really wanted to play it, as
> she said, it was very theraputic to be able to continue rehearsing her pieces
> and it was also very theraputic for the others on the same floor to have live
> music.  However,  she said that the piano was so out of tune it was
> unplayable, and there were several notes that didn't work as well as two
> broken strings. The pedals had problems,too.  She commented that it may be
> the drugs that she had to take, but it just didn't sound like a piano. And
> she just didn't want to play it like it was.
>    She had requested that the hospital get it tuned and was told that there
> was no budget for something like that, (and here I need to rant about a
> university with a $2,000,000,000 ENDOWMENT, that is Billion!!! not being able
> to budget $100 for maintenance of a piece of equipment that a whole ward full
> of kids with problems could benifit from, while they can spend $1000 per day
> on "experts" to tell them what kind of medication is best for their patients,
>  geez,  it turned my stomach and saddened my heart).   She was calling to ask
> if I knew someone that could donate the tuning and repair.  I told her I
> would see.
>   I went back in the shop, trying to finish a pinblock, but this really
> disturbed me so much that I finally said to hell with waiting for some
> "donor",  I had to do it just to live with myself so I packed up my tools,
> and went over there.  Guess what,  I was staring at at......KIMBALL console.
> As dense as I may at times be, the irony was NOT lost on me.
>     Ok,  I know when I am beat, so I began rummaging around for a Paps mute
> and tools to tighten the let-off rail.  I remembered why I hate these things
> while I was fighting to get the new string down between the bass and treble
> wires.  Put powdered Teflon on all those squeaking trapwork pieces,  bent the
> dampers back in the vicinity of where they should be, bent some balance rail
> pins around so the warped keys would play, and then pulled my SAT out to see
> where we were.
>     It didn't even register!  Got my fork out and found where I was. 150
> cents flat!  <sigh>.  So,  I made an FAC, dialed up a Vallotti, gave it a 15
> cent boost and ran through the piano.  I sounded like a steel guitar player
> on Quaaludes, but I had it tight in 15 minutes. Then I went back through and
> tuned it.  Even went over the break aurally, (y'all clap now, you heah?)
>    It didn't change my mind about the quality of these things one bit.  It
> was a cheap excuse for a piano, but on this job, that was beside the point.
> These kids were so starved for something to be intrigued by that I am really
> glad and gratified I did this.  As I left,  she was in there playing a
> Schubert piece, and I noticed that there were at least a dozen of the
> patients that had quietly sat down and were listening.
>     I guess what I learned this afternoon is that there is a place for
> everything, and though my shoulder is sore from the alien posture that tuning
> this thing required, and it wasn't a very good tuning since I am so out of
> practise tuning the vertical pins, there is a room full of kids with more
> problems than I ever had that got something out of it.  So,  to all of you
> techs that service these things regularly,  my hat is off to you. If I
> disparaged any of you for your trade, it was not intentional and I apologize.
> 
> Regards,
> Ed Foote RPT