Joe, The first piano I ever worked on, with my father, was an old upright that we rebuilt in the piano teacher's studio in the mornings before her students came.  One day she said to us, "Now I  understand why my students can't do the things I try to teach them.  Each day, when they come to their lesson, they look to see what you repaired that day, then they go home and look at their pianos.  The following week they tell me, 'Yeh, MY piano is broken there too!'  No wonder they can't do the trills and play with the sensitivity I try to get them to do." Only problem is, that she still gets her own Kawai grand tuned every three years (without fail) and expects me to voice it to sound good, when she bought the piano from her university professor, who had worn the hammers out twenty-five years ago!  Sometimes you just can't win. I'm hoping to take your class on antique pianos next week!  We'll know by tomorrow or Wednesday if we are going for sure. Regards, Diane       Joseph Garrett <joegarrett@earthlink.net> wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">I just got a call from a client. The father was conveying a problem that the son was having with the piano. The piano is an Upright. One that has been in the family for a long time. It was nicely refinished and the action and keys were reconditioned/regulated, by me, a year or so ago. Sounds like a nice situation. Oh, the home is not capable of having a grand piano....just no space available. Now the rub. The son is working on a Rachmaninoff piece, that calls for Sustenuto pedal! My Wish: I wish that ALL teachers would HAVE to visit each student's home and play on the "home" piano, then they would have some idea what the student's piano is capable of! I know that a few teachers "lurk" on this list, so what think ye? My short term solution was to explain to the son the situation with their piano. (It used to have a muffler strip for the middle pedal.) Yes, I could retro-fit a sostenuto onto this piano, but it would be costly. I also advised the son to find a school/church grand piano, with sostenuto mechanism, to practice on. Don't know what else to do. So, there's the problem. Anyone have any further thoughts on the subject? Regards, Joe Garrett, RPT, (Oregon) </BLOCKQUOTE> <hr size=1>Do You Yahoo!? Try FREE <a href="$rd_url/tag/http://mail.yahoo.com/">Yahoo! Mail</a> - the world's greatest free email!