Keyboard Phenomena

Safe for the riser block on the back of the key.

Practice room Hamilton

Tucking it in for the night.

Sunday Mother’s Day tuning on the Erwin B plus some additional commentary Plus a visit to a Steinway L

This winching device would really allow one person to move the piano alone, but it’s really wise to have lots of extra assistance for safety.

There are several reasons why I am working on making a rolling system for the small Zuckermann single manual to be rolled out to the stage. First of all, picking up any harpsichord contorts and flexes the keywell and front end of the case, which is akin to the steel string style of guitar playing…

Part of the job of a professional piano technician is knowing how to keep performance pianos in aesthetically appealing conditions. There are many ways to fix this ding properly, but before I get into the details of that, how about giving voice to the piano’s despair and letting out a cathartic expression of disgust…. Gasp!…

A saying came to me while I was listening to my tuning today, a classic from Krishnamurti, “one must be a light to oneself,” and I was not quite sure why this popped into my brain at the time. Later I was finalizing the tuning and I had another realization: the piano merges into its…

Proof of concept. I created a “no-effort lifting device” that allows me to elevate heavy objects that are basically flush with the ground by cranking a 2000-lb winch bolted to a 2×6 with a pulley wheel at the top. The base of the tool has non-skid non-floor marring tread and offers lateral stability. The hook…

This was the first piano moving experience involving our new musical Instrument Shop Technician, Kelly Fabian. A great piano moving team has been made! I finally bought the $1400 water jet cut aluminum tipper device from Moondog Manufacturing, invented by the highly esteemed Registered Piano Technician Roger Jolly, and it made tilting this seven foot…

After I tuned and voiced this piano today two students complemented how it sounded after, which is nice. Finger grime caked onto the sides of the sharps has been there forever. These grimey sharp sides really need a vigorous scrubbing with ammonia on a rag. This level of buildup only happens after years and cannot…

I steamed out the old bushings from these mortises and they’re ready for new cloth to get installed. Jahn Pianoteille supplies a really good dedicated key steaming machine, which I’d like to buy someday. For now, I use my wallpaper steamer with great success. Steam is the cleanest way to extract a set of old…

This small strip is merely cosmetic and serves to cover the gap between the stretcher and the near edge of the plate. It is secured by a handful of screws. It became the source of an intense buzzing recently, and the solution to correct the problem was the introduction of a strip of felt on…

A common occurrence where the capo bar is too hard or not properly shaped like a gentle and thin “U” causing wires to prematurely reach a certain state of fatigue at that deflection point, exacerbated by institutional use. You can hear, the wire wasn’t changing pitch at the time of snapping. Indeed, it was the…

Unfortunately I was not recording it, otherwise I would explain into the voice memo precisely what I was doing, and will plan this for future sessions. As I recall may have been the case here and is frequently at large, changing weather can sometimes make very dramatic effects in the way any piano sounds. Industry…

Sorry for the clipping, I’m experimenting with my equipment. But, yes that’s how loud the impacts get. Not sure I’d go for AI glasses but that might be the next level.