A few days ago I went to my last tuning of the day and began my normal routine. Almost always, I do a two-pass tuning, so the first 20-30 mins. is 'meditation' time. Ear plugs in, pitch-raise mode with RCT, concentrate on breathing, posture, and cruising along to make the little green propeller stop. Fine, noticed one repaired bass string, so made note-to-self to lower pitch a little before raising. Bottom to top tuning, one mute, switch to narrow mute around A440, aaaaaaaaoooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Get to just above the last dampers..... aaaaaaaaaooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmm There goes the mute, ker-plunk! aaaaaaoooooooooommmmmmmmMAAAAAANNNNNNNNN! Yes, I put an "s" curve in the mute wire so the handle rests on the adjacent hammers. Yes, I've heard the hint about tying a short segment of bushing cloth on the mute to catch the felt of the hammers, but just never tried it. I only drop a mute about once a month, and it's usually not that hard to pull the knee board for retrieval. Open up the piano...... hey, remember that repaired bass string? THERE'S that little pair of vise-grips I remember! Still clamped to the hitch pin, just doing its thing. I've found from other people: tweezers capstan wrench small screwdriver wire gauge mutes I did come to a piano years ago and noticed some EXTREME heavyness and clunking in one bass octave. Found a pair of lineman's cutters I had left there a year before, sitting on the keys. Must be something with repairing strings and brain-freeze with me! Any other lost and found stories you'd like to share? Ron Koval Chicagoland _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
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