Storms and adjustments

Notes from the Berkshires, Day 16

Lenox coffee, 7.15 a.m.

The vibe around the grounds has definitely changed – there are rehearsals in progress in buildings that have been unoccupied for the past two weeks. We divided up the pianos on the grounds yesterday, giving us each around 11 or 12 we’re each responsible for on a regular basis, in terms of tuning and maintaining in good playing condition. Our challenge is working around the schedule in each room to arrange time on the instruments. So far, not a huge task, but beginning next week some rooms will be quite busy. I already ran into a bit of this, as one of my assigned areas is the theatre stage, where work is already underway building the set for the opera. I worked around them for awhile, and then began tuning. No problem for the theatre folk, but about halfway through my process a group of people came in for a meeting on the stage, and I of course had to stop. I had other work elsewhere to accomplish, so I moved on to quieter pastures. I’m finding the voice recorder app on the iPhone to be very helpful already; I make some verbal notes on each piano I come in contact with, and I can listen back later or transcribe the notes if necessary.

Steve, the new supervising technician, is the technician from the Univ. of Iowa, so we have a few experiences in common. I like him – his energy is very quiet and deliberate, which will exert a calming influence on us as things get crazier over the next weeks. He has asked us each to provide him with a set of personal aims for the summer, and I spent some time thinking about that last evening. It’s hard to pick out one or two things when there seems to be so much to learn, but I came up with a couple of items which stand out in my mind currently.

We experienced our first real storms of the summer yesterday, complete with lightning, hail, and wind. I was tuning in a relatively sheltered location when it hit, but there are some places we’ll work that would become almost intolerable in a rainstorm. Not because of leaking, but because of the noise: the sound of rain on the roof can get almost deafening in some of the smaller buildings.

Today we start at Miss Hall’s School. Our normal start time has moved up to 8.00, which may mean a shift in the morning schedule. The wi-fi on the grounds is up and running, though, which will help with uploading the blog and staying connected.