Up and down

Notes from the Berkshires, Day 24

Lenox Coffee, 7.11 a.m.

The weather still stubbornly refuses to fully enter summer mode, although yesterday when the sun was shining there were moments when I actually wished I had worn shorts; first time for that sensation since I arrived. Today is overcast again.

It appears as if I’m stuck getting my Wi-Fi fix here at the coffee shop; the signal at the Copland Library is so weak as to be useless. Perhaps there’s a place one can stand in the building and access a signal strong enough to establish a working connection, but I haven’t found it yet. So, I can either look at this as paying $3/day for internet access with a cup of good coffee as a perk, or getting my coffee snob taken care of and getting free Wi-Fi in the bargain. Whichever.

Had an up and down day yesterday – started off with an excellent session with Steve; tons of information and some good encouragement and feedback on my tuning. The answer to almost any question about technique could legitimately be “time and experience”, but there are some very helpful tips to be offered as well. Steve holds a good balance between those two approaches. Of course, then I went out to work on a piano and ran into a problem that stumped me, and a tuning I wasn’t happy with. Time. Experience. Repeat as necessary, apply to infected area.

My next few days will be spent in large part on making sure the pianos for which I’m responsible are squared away and in excellent shape by next Thursday, when V arrives, so I can comfortably take a few hours off to spend with her. First order of business is the Theatre, where there are potential friction problems galore, and there have been unconfirmed reports of dissatisfaction with the pianos. My questioning yesterday uncovered nothing specific, but I’ll see when I get there this afternoon. The other piano I want to really nail is the one in the conductor’s room in the Shed, which will eventually be used by James Levine, but in the next week or so could see use by the pianist from A Prairie Home Companion – I forget his name – and Diana Krall. It’s the B I was struggling with yesterday afternoon, so a question or two for SC are in order.