Scalpels and Scruples (From the Diary of a Mad Piano Technician) As you will clearly see from the photographic documentation presented in this and previous entries, we have managed to achieve significant progress toward our goal of reviving this retched … Continue reading
Reconstructive Surgery (From the Diary of a Mad Piano Technician) Continuing with our skeletal reparations after joining the inner layers of the rim (see Episode 3), we sculpted a rather large section of new bone (hardwood) to replace the missing … Continue reading
Braces & Bolts (From the Diary of a Mad Piano Technician) Having cleaned and disinfected the victim, we were now confronted with one of our more perplexing problems. Being faced with layers of missing and/or distorted skeletal elements, we were … Continue reading
Skin and Bones (From the Diary of a Mad Piano Technician) In order to begin my experiment, I first needed to remove all of the rotted flesh from our corpse and determine if there was anything salvageable beneath it. This … Continue reading
Corpus (From the Diary of a Mad Piano Technician) After many years of struggling to recuperate patients with terminal and calamitous ailments, I was recently confronted with a dilemma that I would soon realized to be an opportunity for making … Continue reading
One of the first questions I ask when visiting a new customer is “Aside from tuning, are there any specific problems with the piano that you’d like me to address?” With older pianos there is often a litany of complaints … Continue reading
After visiting a friend in an old apartment building downtown on a cool and cloudless summer evening, I walk downstairs to the lobby and, as I near the front door, I hear a loud rumbling sound and people screaming outside. … Continue reading
This story is only related to piano tuning in that its primary elements occurred on either side of a tuning appointment, rather like an inexplicable sandwich of paranormal bread. It begins, oddly enough, with an unforgettable dream (from which I … Continue reading
Years ago, I went to a tuning outside of a small town in West Michigan, in the heart of the Bible Belt. My customer was an average looking middle aged woman, who worked as a truck driver. She had an … Continue reading
I was inspired to write this story by a fellow technicians’ comment about the unusual people she’s met during her many years in the field. Before I dive in, however, I want to reiterate my concern for maintaining the anonymity … Continue reading