My piano is making my ears bleed.

It's funny how over the years I've gotten used to the good bad and ugly. But when they tune up nicely it's always a joy... and a relief. What kind of piano do you have?

I got it for free last summer, so I can't complain. It belonged to a neighbor's grandmother and hadn't been tuned for years, so it will probably need a few more tunings before it settles in. It's an OK piano for me because my playing kind of sucks, but I hate it when things are out of tune.

It has a good history and the 50's were good years for that make. Get it tuned up and I bet you'll hear some nice sounds.

I was told that would happen, and that a second tuning would be needed. After the second tuning, where it held 440 for a good while, it gradually slipped again, which I also expected. So, after the weather settles a bit, I'll call the tuner again.

I don't think I could enjoy it much if I couldn't play. That's half the fun, trying out the results.

I, also, had a Hammond organ.


Love the sound a keyboard and it’s accompaniments make.

Tikki

ps...also had an accordion.

spinning speaker thingy? Rock and roll wouldn't be what it is without the old B3 and a Leslie.

Here's a good video of it. One of the key feature of the speaker is that the lower rotor baffle took longer to start and stop vs. the horns up top. As a result you could get that growling sound when you turned up the speed with bass cords and at that same time get the highs to scream through like fingernails on the a chalkboard if you had it miked right. You can see it about halfway through this short video.

Damn it was a lovely combination.

And there was nothing as fast and easy on the hands as a Hammond keyboard. Spring up under the front of the keyboard so the tension was softer, return was faster, and consistency between white and black keys was great. Learned the hard way one night...cracked a key and the front part fell off, leaving the back part of the key exposed and above the board level...with a jagged plastic edge. Didn't see it but found it during a hand glide. Damn luck I didn't rip up my fingers. Still have the scar on my palm when ya know where to look.

Still - would kill to have it back and remember every day with it fondly.

Now - anyone want to chat about an Arp 2600 or a Rhodes 88 ?

Very cool. Nothing like the real mechanical electronics. Forget digital , it sounds fake. That's the real thing.

You probably knew that the Hammond sound is made by spinning disks. They never go out of tune unless you hold down notes while you're starting it up with those double switch starters under the keyboard. Then you hear the disks starting to spin and settle, kind of a weird wavy sound.

Thanks for starting a conversation the reminded me of this.

I think I had more fun taking it apart and putting it back together than I did playing it though.

He he.

You'll get similar results!

I don't know.. it kinda looses something in the delivery. Maybe it's the timing..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanakopita

see how i switched it up?

how original of me!

Mr. Opperknockity is a superb piano tuner. He has spent more than 30 years honing his craft and has made quite a reputation for himself. He got a call from a guy who had just bought a new grand piano and requested Mr. Opperknockity to come and tune it. Mr. Opperknockity spent more than 3 hours tuning the grand piano to perfection, collected his fee and left.

A few days later, the customer called Mr. Opperknockity and informed him that the piano was no longer in tune. The customer demanded that Mr. Opperknockity return and re-tune the piano. To which Mr. Opperknockity replied, "My friend, you have missed out. Opperknockity only tunes once."

It was our grandmother's, and we inherited it in the 1950s. Very distinctive sound. Years later I had a small Wurlitzer for a while, had to sell it to buy a car.

We attended St. John's Cathedral in Denver, where Mom had grown up singing in the choir and remained good friends with organist David Pew; we would sometimes drop in during the week to hear him practice, and I remember being in awe of that music. In the '80s Dad was caretaker at a church in northern California, and when I visited he unlocked the monstrous pipe organ and asked me to play it while he did some work in the sanctuary; glorious instrument, totally intimidating! These days my knees and hips won't let me play the pump organ, and my small apartment has me limited to a Casio keyboard. A while back there was a show on H&G that featured a house with an upstairs ballroom with a built-in pipe organ; I could love such a house!

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I've fixed a couple over the years.
Playing a big pipe organ for the first time is pretty overwhelming. I knew a guy who was building a huge house with a 3 story living room area. He asked me to build a pipe organ in it. I got right on the design but a month later he died, so I never got to do it. I was really looking forward to it. Oh well.

years ago (mid 70s) I was a nanny for an Episcopal priests kids and their apartment (where I also lived) was attached to the church.

I had full access to the church and would go down there in the middle of the night and turn on the organ and listen to what all the different stops sounded like. I found some "simple" Bach pieces and tried my hand at making some music. Even playing a simple melody line could have spectacular results!! I think all the pipes were up around the nave but, at some point, some trumpet pipes were added and they were built in the back of the church!!

I loved tinkering around with that beautiful behemoth!

edit to add link: http://www.nycago.org/Organs/NYC/html/CalvaryEpis.html

where I'm the curator of the organ. Most of my work is done late at night so playing those midnight concerts for myself in a dark Cathedral is lot of fun. Sometimes I bring a late night snack but I keep it away from the keyboard for sure.

The bellows need repair; I have no idea if there is anyone around here who can do that.

I bet you could find someone who would do it if you looked around a bit.

I grew up with the Sohmer upright grand that my great grandparents bought for grandmother in 1905. So long as any of us kids were taking lessons, my parents had a piano tuner come in a tune the thing about once a year. My sister took the piano for about twenty years for her sons to learn to play.

I got it back in about 2001 and had it tuned. When we built this house in 2008 we moved the piano in but since I was not playing did not bother to tune it again. Since I don't use it and one of my nephews wants it I plan to have a local piano tuner/refurbisher pick it, restore the finish, and do whatever repairs it needs. Then he can deliver it directly to my nephew and tune it in place.

The man this piano tuner studied under spent much of his career as a piano tuner for Steinway Piano out of New York City. In his retirement he moved to Florida for the climate and taught piano tuning at Florida State University. While I was in college I lived in a mobile home park just across the street. His wife had him look up the serial number for the Sohmer which verifies its age.

She also told me about his best piano tuning job of all time. A client came into the New York show room and wanted to buy a piano to be delivered to his home - in Peru. The piano tuner I knew was paid to dismantle the grand piano, pack it and deliver it to Peru. The last leg of the trip was through the Andes and the piano pieces were packed on llama back. Steinway got great press - his wife showed me clippings in her scrapbook of her husband with the piano laden llamas. There was also a picture of the piano in place in the buyer's home in the mountains.

I like the pictures of it I can imagine in my head. Wow.

Part of the problem is I have no idea what decade it was in. I met the man and his wife in the mid-1970s and he must have been at least in his late 60s then. His last name was Kitchen and I don't know what his first name was.

it hasn't worked for about 20 years as far as I know but I inherited it with everything else and I can't even give the thing away. I think my grandpa inquired about getting it fixed a while back but I suspect it was too costly. No idea what's wrong with it. Doesn't even come on any more.

The good news is I reckon it doesn't need tuning!

It's in my way but it will cost me money to get it hauled off so it will sit there until a visitor asks if they can have it. I don't get a lot of visitors so it might be a while.

They go way back. The Hammond mechanisms are simple and very sturdy. If there is a problem it's probably in the standard electronics like the amp, wiring, switches, fuses or the like. I bet there's an electrician or an electrical hobbyist who could check through the basic connections like I mentioned. I bet it would fire right up. Find someone who just wants to tinker around with stuff like that. There's not much high powered knowhow involved.

And yes, you wouldn't need to tune it. You couldn't tune it if you wanted to.

I actually need a piano tuner. Hard to come by these days sadly

But I'm on the other side of the country now. I'm surprised it's hard to find a tuner up there but maybe they have to come in from farther out. You could look up the Piano Technicians Guild website and see if there are tuners in the area or how far they have to come to your location.

Try www.ptg.org

that has a piano shop, sells high end pianos...
and also repairs, restores, and tunes.

I got rid of my older electric a couple of years ago.
At some point in the next year or so I'll get something else.

one of those high end pianos you were talking about. I suggest a 9' er.