6/3, 9.49 p.m.
This is my first Steinway Model B of the week, serial #584920. A very nice 7’ piano, more or less straight out of the box, and I am the first technician outside of the Steinway factory to work with it. My job is to bring it into basic playing condition so a decision can be made regarding where it will live for the next two months. Pretty cool. Today I bedded the keyframe, made adjustments to the alignment and traveling paths of the hammers, did a preliminary evaluation of the aftertouch, and added a surprising amount of lacquer to the hammerheads in order to bring up the volume of the piano. Tomorrow I get to hear the results.
Started the day back in vertical-land, with another tuning, bringing my total to 8 so far. This one, though, went much better than the last, and started the day on a positive note. Went from there to a session on voicing, specifically on the use of lacquer as a hardening agent. Lots of focus on listening to the sound of individual notes, and making decisions based on what we hear. After lunch, we split up to our individual pianos and worked on prep, including what we talked about yesterday, the information from the morning’s session, and the beginnings of rough regulation. In short, lots of information, which we are being asked to apply almost instantaneously to real work on the pianos. Very exciting, and challenging.
Ended the day with some socializing with the tech staff at a local watering hole. Nice to relax a bit, and share stories and information. In a couple of weeks, the area will be taken over by the participants in, and listeners to, the music festival, so we’re all enjoying the calm before the storm, as it were.
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