That Feeling That The Ax Will Fall

It's just a matter of when. But for now, I'm swamped with work...still. Yeah, there was a week or so just after the new year when things slowed a teeny bit. With the economic situation still VERY ill, I don't understand why business is good. Not complaining, just nervous.

Today was Ipswich afternoon. I went to look at a piano that the owner had seemed very nervous about over the phone. She was afraid that she had made a big mistake in accepting a free piano. Well, it's no great shakes but certainly a serviceable Story & Clark console. We've scheduled a tuning in about a week. Then I went to tune a VERY LARGE Henry F. Miller upright dating from 1902. It had been redone, sort of, mostly weirdly with wrong sized hammers, inappropriate and too thick felts. It played and that was the client's main concern. Played well? No. But every note worked. The piano had been restrung with oversized tuning pins. Before this new owner acquired the instrument, it had been stored on a porch. Most rusty tuning pins I have ever seen. Orange crud was growing like lichen on the bass pins, yet the strings looked shiny and new! Most of the bass tuning pins did not want to turn. That concerned me as with all that rust, I was sure that a pin would snap off. I certainly didn't want that mess. The client stayed in the room watching and listening through the entire tuning. I had expressed my concerns about the rusty pins and she commented that she wasn't nervous at all. "That's one person in this room that's not worried," I said. Finished in just over an hour, and - it sounds better but still plays like...

Came home to a set of keys on the porch. Big job of German tops and fronts and key bushing. Another set due to arrive on Monday, just for bushings. Monday's job may lead to doing production key work for an electric keyboard company. Next week there should be another two sets of keys beyond those I just mentioned. Monday afternoon I tune for a regular customer, Wednesday morning another regular (the Steinway monster). Then the music director at the school called and they need three pianos tuned this coming week. Sometime in there I've got to return the action (back to a customer's piano) that I had in the shop for repairs last week.

Yep, I'm getting nervous.

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Oh, and before I forget to mention it. There's a new book in the sidebar. Ford County is a collection of stories written by John Grisham. A good read and according to Mr. Grisham, the stories are taken from ideas that he's had over the years that never developed in to full novels.