Concert nightmares/no time

Billbrpt@AOL.COM Billbrpt@AOL.COM
Fri, 25 May 2001 10:00:19 EDT


---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment
In a message dated 5/25/01 8:35:21 AM Central Daylight Time, 
tomtuner@mediaone.net (Tom Driscoll) writes:


> Group, Give me kimball a  spinet ,a leaf blower outside, bad coffee that I
> dump in the sink, and an appreciative client  anyday over this situation .
> Look it up in the dictionary under "no win" .
> 
I totally agree.  Although it is exhilarating and gratifying to tune for a 
great concert, it simply takes more time than a "floor tuning" would.  I 
vividly remember a stomping, ranting and raving Horacio Gutierrez who 
complained that the piano was not "brilliant" enough.  Even though I had 
served many other artists to their utmost delight, the director of that 
theater can only remember that Mr. Gutierrez was upset and dissatisfied with 
my "tuning" (in spite of Mr. G. making a point of saying the tuning was 
"fine").

I'll never forget that livid face and the Cuban accent, "Eef I hed thee gone, 
I wheel shoot you!"

Yesterday, I got a whole lot more pleasure and satisfaction out of my work by 
tuning a square grand that no one else would touch (even though it is in 
perfectly fine, restored condition) and getting a double fee for doing so.

I also did what Joe Garret has suggested along the lines of mentoring.  There 
is a 16 year old musical genius boy who has a Wurlitzer spinet which needed 3 
jacks repinned, the rubber grommets replaced and a few strings in the high 
treble replaced.  The boy helped with the job and ended up cutting off all of 
the old grommets and slipping on the new ones while I was replacing the 
strings.

I charged only my lowest "dealer" rates because I know that his hard working, 
single mother has little extra money to spend.  I've known the boy since he 
was small.  Even at the age of 8, he was playing the piano amazingly well 
without having ever had a single lesson.  His mother says "you just can't get 
him away from that piano".  

He is now old enough to go get a summer job, so I intend to help him get an 
apprentice job in a piano rebuilder's shop.  He has also made a CD of 
electronic music that is downright amazing: fresh, contemporary sounding but 
not like all of the other crap being put out today.  I will also see if the 
local avant-garde composer, Roscoe Mitchell will take him for the summer to 
work on performance and composition.

Remember you heard the name *Blake Gilmore* here first.

To echo Tom D's remarks, I'd much rather have spent yesterday the way I did 
rather than experience the nightmare and disappointment that Dave R. talked 
about.  Along with the Walter console and Steinway M I tuned, I think I made 
more money than I would have at a concert hall anyway.

Bill Bremmer RPT
Madison, Wisconsin

---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/43/ad/f0/73/attachment.htm

---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment--


This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC