I went to a new customer, today. Local piano teacher. Some warning bells went off when she not only didn't know how long it had been since it was tuned, but what brand of grand it was. (She later commented how good her old Lowry had been... oops) She also wanted me to clean the insides, fearing the dust rabbits on the soundboard might be interfering with the function of the instrument. When I got there I recognized her as someone I'd seen in the music building for years, but never been introduced. We wound up chatting for at least 1/2 hour about my retirement, college profs, etc. and how/where I'd learned to tune. (like a recent thread) The beastie turned out to be a redone Bush & Lane 5' neo-natal which she'd recently gotten from her Aunt and had been in storage +5 years while Auntie had been in a nursing home and had no idea how long it had been untuned before that. It was ±100¢ flat. Cleaned the soundboard, etc. then Cybertuner to the rescue! The tuning was about 3/4 done and going well when she came into the room, holding her arm, asking me to phone her husband. She had gone out to bring in the mail and had fallen on the ice. I called him and then took a closer look at her wrist. It was already twice the size of the other one. I called 911. Husband, first responder and ambulance were all soon there. Besides the wrist which was mostly likely well broken, her shoulder was either dislocated or broken. I've tuned against Muzak, TV, vacuums, etc. but, trust me, you can't tune a piano with a woman screaming in pain 10 feet away. 45 minutes later, after all had left, I finished the tuning, left the bill on the piano, locked the door, went home and had a beer... Conrad Hoffsommer -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20100127/31a11097/attachment.htm>
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