---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment It must have been a really sweet piano long ago, but now the 1890 S and S "A" sits forlornly at the Palo Alto Hills Country Club, looking out at the golf course from its spot in the west-facing-heat-collecting pictrue windows. Only called upon to perform very occasionally, the soundboard is cracked in many places, dotted with cigarette ashes flicked into it when they piano was placed by the pool for an outdoor function, and wax from celebratory candles; the tuning pins and coils have been coated with god-knows-how-many martinis, and many of the strings are adorned with a fine layer of rust. Put into this purgatory by a private donor long ago, if this piano were anything other than a Steinway, it would be ready for the glue heap. One would think that in a country club where memberships cost well over 100K$, someone would recognize the potential value of something like this and pony up the money to have it re*******ed. I have recommended this many times. End of Rant. PAHCC modus operandi: the night before an important performance(and sometimes the day of), the catering manager calls to have the piano "tuned". I've been there before, and I was there again last night. The first hour and a half was spent repairing broken things and doing enough regulation so that it was at least playable. Two of the more rusted wires snapped as I tuned them despite dropping them in pitch before raising them a couple of cents. When my work was finished, I played on it for while. I'll be darned if it sound and played like a piano again! There's still a good heart in there! The fortunate thing is that the function is tonight, and not last night! Gives me a chance to go pull the new strings up and pickup my check(since anyone who could sign one had left long before my 8:45 PM departure time). It was one of those jobs where I should have charged by number of tools used; it took me forever just to put everything back into it's designated slot at the end of the night. There. I feel better now. Thanks for reading. Dave Stahl ---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/86/f4/c2/bc/attachment.htm ---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment--
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