Post what you are thinking right now, part two

[Icequeen]

An interesting two hours, just now.

A "friend" called last night after finding an cool thing at an estate auction - it is what he does. He wanted to come by and show me something he had never seen before. Honestly, I had never seen one either.

About the time my wife was trying to get her gear together and get to work, he shows up. So there were some greetings and pleasantries to accomplish.

Finally he ran back to his truck and brought out this custom, handmade wooden case with an eight string viola inside. It was all acoustic and had never been modified for electric use. I had never seen anything like it.

He wanted my assessment. I had no idea how to even try to tune it, so I went on line and found a number of eight string tunings to try. I could tell by just inspecting it that it was very well constructed. AND the hand carved case!! WOW, it was kind of unique.

The strings were horrid and needed to be changed, but once we got close to "in tune" it had a very warm throaty sound.
I am still amazed!

I showed him a website belonging to luthier in Nashville who might be able to help him assess its value. It was well beyond my experience.

Viola? I've seen a 6 string but never, ever an 8.

That sounds like one hell of a find. Wondering what the age is on it.

 

[Minister Of Silly Walks]

When I was a kid we had a very old upright piano.

The keys were made from real ivory. Other old pianos normally had keys made from bone. The keys were in perfect condition, the rest of the piano.... not so much.

Our piano teacher hated the piano and spent years trying to convince us to buy a new one. Which we eventually did.

I sometimes wonder whether those keys would have been worth a bit of money to someone looking to restore an old piano. We gave that piano to my sister's best friend and her parents traded it in on a new piano a few years later while she was overseas.


My wife has an electric piano (nothing fancy) somewhere around the house. She refuses to get it out of storage as she really likes our upright acoustic piano and thinks I should play that instead. Except that the upright acoustic piano was kept under a leaky air conditioner for years and the keys are shot, the action is shot, the sound isn't that good, it's out of tune.

[renaeden]

I have a friend that is a fair savant at classical piano. She's quite amazing although last time I visited her place, the piano was out of tune and so she wouldn't play it. I wonder how much it costs to get someone to come and tune it and how hard it is.

My friend got to meet the famous pianist, David Helfgott recently.

[Minister Of Silly Walks]

I have a friend that is a fair savant at classical piano. She's quite amazing although last time I visited her place, the piano was out of tune and so she wouldn't play it. I wonder how much it costs to get someone to come and tune it and how hard it is.

My friend got to meet the famous pianist, David Helfgott recently.

I'll bet you wouldn't even be able to tell that it's out of tune.

My grandfather was a musical savant. He learned to read music and play the piano by watching his aunts play in the orchestra pits at the silent movies (where it was his job to turn the pages). He was a professional musician all his life. I would guess he was hyperlexic as well. He did 2 round-the-world tours as part of a band, the first in 1923.

[renaeden]

Something not many people know - I used to play the trumpet for two years in primary school. So I learnt to read music pretty well. I rarely practiced because Mum didn't like the noise yet I still managed to keep up with lessons every week. I also played in the school band. I enjoyed that.

I'd like to think I could tell if a piano is out of tune but I haven't heard one that I know of.

[Minister Of Silly Walks]

Something not many people know - I used to play the trumpet for two years in primary school. So I learnt to read music pretty well. I rarely practiced because Mum didn't like the noise yet I still managed to keep up with lessons every week. I also played in the school band. I enjoyed that.

I'd like to think I could tell if a piano is out of tune but I haven't heard one that I know of.

If your friend is a savant then a slightly out-of-tune piano may sound horrible to her. To most of us, being a bit out of tune just gives a piano a bit of character. Maybe if someone played scales on the piano you could tell if it is slightly out of tune.

[odeon]

Nothing to do with being a savant. If you have perfect pitch, you will hear that the piano is out of tune. It's not necessarily horrible, it's just not right.

And yes, I have perfect pitch.

[renaeden]

I took a test for hearing pitch online. I think I was pretty average.

The first I knew about perfect pitch was in an Anne McCaffrey book, The Crystal Singer. Three books in that series, all enjoyed by me.

[Minister Of Silly Walks]

If you remember the piano that Ray Charles played in The Blues Brothers, that is what an out-of-tune piano sounds like to me.

Maybe not ideal for playing Beethoven, but fine for blues or jazz or similar.

[renaeden]

The Blues Brothers is something I'll have to watch - I haven't seen it.

[odeon]

I took a test for hearing pitch online. I think I was pretty average.

The first I knew about perfect pitch was in an Anne McCaffrey book, The Crystal Singer. Three books in that series, all enjoyed by me.

It's a bit of a pain when buying music on vinyl. The slightest misalignment of the centre will result in an audible wobble. CDs are better in that respect but some things mastered on tape can produce the same effect.

[renaeden]

Oh, I definitely heard tapes out of tune. I grew up in the tape era and often received them for birthdays or Christmas. Old tapes would sound wrong to me.

I still play CDs in my car. It has a 15 years old CD player in it that still plays perfectly.

[Charlotte Quin]

Between the boil the tap water alert, the current dust storm blowing through and the drought, Dad should be pondering moving back to the coast from Lightning Ridge where he is

[Minister Of Silly Walks]

Between the boil the tap water alert, the current dust storm blowing through and the drought, Dad should be pondering moving back to the coast from Lightning Ridge where he is

It's dry enough out there even when there isn't a drought. I was in Lightning Ridge 30+ years ago for a few days, it felt a lot like the Wild West.

Is your Dad an opal miner?

[DirtDawg]

When I was a kid we had a very old upright piano.

The keys were made from real ivory. Other old pianos normally had keys made from bone. The keys were in perfect condition, the rest of the piano.... not so much.

Our piano teacher hated the piano and spent years trying to convince us to buy a new one. Which we eventually did.

I sometimes wonder whether those keys would have been worth a bit of money to someone looking to restore an old piano. We gave that piano to my sister's best friend and her parents traded it in on a new piano a few years later while she was overseas.


My wife has an electric piano (nothing fancy) somewhere around the house. She refuses to get it out of storage as she really likes our upright acoustic piano and thinks I should play that instead. Except that the upright acoustic piano was kept under a leaky air conditioner for years and the keys are shot, the action is shot, the sound isn't that good, it's out of tune.

In my father's work he had many contacts, including an old guy who restored pianos and basically all mechanical key operated instruments.

When I first met him he was restoring the steam operated huge leather bellows that powered a pipe organ from the 1800s in a massive Catholic Church. All the steam parts were just fine after one hundred or so years, but the twelve foot tall leather bellows had developed holes and no longer worked properly.
From his description and my only trip with him, one had to arrive at the church five hours before services to start a boiler which simply operated a single steam piston engine in a separate building. Once the steam engine was going you could begin to operate the bellows, which fed pressure into another massive air-tight part of the remote building. All the pressure was then sent  a room sized "manifold" which THEN powered the pipes of the organ.

It was one of those days when I had my camera around my neck, but I was too astounded by my surroundings to take a moment to snap pics.
Anyway, on that day this old salty fellow taught me how to tell the difference between real ivory keys, which this old pipe organ had, and the two odd keys that had been replaced with probably bovine bone in the past.

Back to the point: The real ivory keys show a circular grain structure, while the cheap replacement cowbone keys had a linear grain structure.

I can tell you if it was real ivory those keys would still be worth their weight in gold.