Top ten reasons why I haven’t worked on my antique piano in two weeks

10) My “consultant” will be visiting me on April 16^th and I want him to be able to see the inside and all the work I’ve done. (Kind of a BS excuse, which is why it’s #10.)

9) I finished the strings and I’m taking a break between milestones.

8) I’ve been too busy listening to “Milestones” by Miles Davis. (Actually, “Softly, As In a Morning Sunrise” by The Modern Jazz Quartet, see #1, below.)

7) It’s hard work.

6) I’ve been taking advantage of the weather and working outside a lot.

5) I’ve got to finish schoolwork before the piano. (Again, see #1, below.)

4) No, it really is hard work.

3) Anyway, I’m almost done. Kind of.

2) Tomorrow is another day.

1) I finished the transcription of the piano solo from “Softly, As In a Morning Sunrise” by The Modern Jazz Quartet. My last day of class is May 2, and between then and now, I not only had to do the transcription, but I’ve got to learn a bunch more scales and I’ve got to be able to fashion my way through the melody and a one chorus solo for at least five different songs. That takes practice, not an antique piano. So the number one reason I haven’t been working on my piano is because I’ve been working on my music and my class work. The most excellent part: I finished the solo transcription in one weekend of heavy (10+ hours) of work. But it’s finished, so now, I just need to practice, and I’ve promised myself to turn off the TV during the week and turn on the piano instead. (I’ve already turned off Facebook and kept it off for over a month now.) We’ll get the piano finished pretty soon, don’t you worry.

Days 82 and 83 – Saturday and Sunday, March 26 and 27 – Strings are strung

Goals: Finish the strings

Music: Tony Bennett’s “MTV Unplugged”; Lars Gullin’s “Danny’s Dream".

I decided it was high time I quit making excuses and started making some progress on the piano. I was helped by the fact that I largely didn’t feel like practicing the piano this weekend (as much as I do need that). So on Saturday, I completed the rough tuning of the piano, tuning everything down a half tone, so middle A on the piano sounds like G#. My tuner is actually pretty handy, but as I got higher into the upper register, it became less and less reliable. By the time I reached the last few notes, I was tuning by ear alone, but as I got the tones to where I thought I was close, I was able to use the tuner to check them and they all were fine. At the lower end of the double strings, there were about a half dozen pins that needed shimming, including one that I had used a sandpaper shim on. Although I’ve gotten quite skilled at that, it took a little more time than I would have liked, due to having to replace two strings, one that was too short to begin with and one that was kind of short and broke off at the end. Again, due to having gained some skill and plenty of practice in this area, it didn’t take me long to do.

On Sunday, there was nothing left but the 33 wound bass strings, all singles. Not being in the mood to fuss and knowing that when I did the reaming I started at this end and wasn’t tired so the holes were probably all over-reamed, I went straight to the oversized pins. Even at that, I had to shim quite a few, say one of every three, so towards the end, I just went with putting a shim in automatically without bothering to check fit.

Because all these strings were custom made, I took my time handling the actual strings. I made sure every one had plenty of wire to wind on the pins, I started the pins up high to allow me to wind them well, and I made sure every one was seated properly before winding. I only had one or two give me fits, mostly towards the end when my eyes were getting tired and I couldn’t tell if the coils were seating correctly or not. But in about three hours, I had completely attached and tuned the 33 single bass string strings. The strings are now complete: 

The big advantage of finishing this part of the project is it allows me to clean up a good bit. I can put away all the boxes of pins (3 of them), the sandpaper and metal shims, the aluminum bushings (never used) the coils of wire, plus all the tools that go with this part of the project – hammer, pin driver, pin turner, tin snips, stamp tongs (for inserting shims), calipers (for measuring strings and pins), and tuning wrench and tuner (which I’ll need again later). I can now also throw out all the old strings and put into storage my string size chart, marking flags and all the miscellaneous stuff that accumulated during this phase of the project. I’m sure I won’t know what to do with all the space.

Next up is the hammer assembly and the damper arms. I still don’t know what I’m going to do about the missing damper arm, but as I do have replacement hammers for the broken and missing ones, I guess that’s where I’ll start. Although I have a lot of little jobs left, I’m thinking I’ll be able to steamroll through them. I very well may be catching my second wind for the fourth or fifth time. 

Day 81 – Sunday, March 13 – Not sure where to go

Goals: Shim loose pins and continue rough tuning piano

Music: None

Thinking I was going to rough tune the piano down a half tone, I started at middle A and was shooting for G#. The first string I was able to tune down, no problem. The second one was at F# and the pin was too loose to tune it higher than that. I was neither mentally nor physically willing to wrestle with the tuning pins, having worked outside most of the morning including running one mile in my Five Finger shoes, so I decided to just stick to tuning what I could. Rather than go up and find all my hard work undone by loose pins, I decided to work down and just stick with finding what was tunable and what was not and tuning as much as possible. Long story short, almost all the pins on the short side of the piano will have to be redone. Ten minutes and I was done. There was nothing left but hard work. And I left it.

Listening to Chris Botti in Boston while cooking dinner and sipping rum made me feel better. His version of Miles Davis’s Flamenco Sketches is stunning, with the Boston Pops swinging hard and some guy doing a guitar solo that is nothing short of mesmerizing. That’s the kind of music that makes people want to make their own music, not work on pianos.

Q&A with the late George Russell

You may be a jazz heavyweight. You may be a jazz lightweight. You may be late to jazz, or you may be steeped in jazz from before you could walk. So some of you may relate to my latest jazz learning experience, but some of you may not. But from out of nowhere, I’ve found out about this guy who’s name was George Russell. I’d only heard of him in passing for the first time a few months ago, as I noticed one of his recordings on the core collection list, my own collection of which was nearing completion and conspicuously missing his recording.

And I couldn’t find it anywhere, or at least, not anywhere for less than $75 or so. But when I started to read and learn about George Russell, like so many things jazz before this, I wondered how I’d missed him this whole time. I won’t go on about George. You can go to Wikipedia or his eponymous website to learn all you want about him.  As for me, a student in my last semester of jazz class, second straight semester of jazz improvisation, I’m a little aggravated to have all this awareness of George and his contributions to jazz sideswipe me this late in my education. So much so, I had dreams of George’s face talking to me from the psychedelic purple cover of his complete Bluebird recordings (the long version of the CD that is really hard to get).

So, to be honest, I don’t know very much about Mr. Russell, yet, but I plan to learn everything I can about him as quickly as possible. In the meantime, the little exercise below is merely for entertainment and to hopefully clear my dream state of Mr. Russell’s all-knowing, ghostly-yet-serious face. If you know about George Russell, you may even get a couple of my puns/jokes/inferences. To obtain the maximum visual effect, imagine the interview being conducted by Connie Chung in a dark suit from Chanel. (George is in black and white tweed, just like on the cover of “Jazz Workshop”, which is same as the picture above. Also, if you notice, George is not resting his head on his chin, but is, in fact, showing you his fist a good ten inches away from his body..."Watch it, buddy!")

Connie: Thank you for agreeing to talk with us, and thank God for allowing us into heaven to interview you, Mr. Russell.

George: George.

Connie: George.

George: Hmph.

Connie: So, tell us about the afterlife.

George: It sucks. Wrong kind of music, everywhere. It’s like I’m trapped in an ethereal universe above the clouds with a bunch of singing angels and every song is the Oratorio from “The Messiah”…oh, … wait…

Connie:  What’s different about the music?

George: Everything’s Ionian and straight up. I keep begging for somebody to play something in Lydian, or even Dorian, or to at least swing a little bit, but no.

Connie: It sounds positively heavenly here. What’s wrong with that?

George: Nothing, really, but I’m going to throw up if I hear the four chord resolve to the one chord one more time.

Connie: Would you explain that for the beginning jazz musicians in our audience?

George: No.

Connie: Maybe God would let you arrange an angelic choir sometime?

George: Meh! Who’s got time for that?

Connie: Don’t you have an eternity?

George: Yeah, but I’m busy working on another edition of my book.

Connie: Let’s talk about your book. I’ve noticed that on Amazon, first editions of the spiral bound, Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization, are going for anywhere from well north of a hundred dollars, all the way up to $500.

George: Really? Damn. I could’ve used some of that scratch while I was alive. But what’s my book doing in Brazil? I didn’t know they sold books in the rain forest.

Connie: Yes, … but don’t you feel that the title of your book might be a little off-putting to the average jazz musician?

George: I hope not. The editor scrapped my title for it.

Connie: What was it originally called?

George: Conceptualization of Asynchronous Harmony from Chromatic Permutations of Lydian and Mixolydian Flat-6 Tonalities Derived Using Tonal Organization of Synchronous Patterns and Sonic Causations of Melodic Structures.

Connie: That’s quite a mouthful.

George: Please, don’t say “mouthful”, Connie. Anyway, it had a subtitle.

Connie: Which was…?

George: Cool Sounding Jazz Music.

Connie: Yes, um, er, okay. So, on another subject, is Bill Evans up in heaven with you?

George: I thought this was a serious interview.

Connie: Sorry. Why do you think your CD’s are so hard to find back on earth?

George: “Kind of Blue” is hard to find? I heard it’s the most popular jazz recording ever.

Connie: It is, but that’s a Miles Davis record.

George: Yeah, right. Good one.

Connie: Okay, why do you think jazz recordings – with your name on them – are so hard to find at reasonable prices back on earth?

George: My recordings are selling at a premium, too? Goddammit! Oops. Anyway, I’m going to talk to the land Lord when this interview is over about getting a few minutes back downstairs. Got to be a few royalty checks bouncing around with my name, somewhere.

Connie: Do you need money in heaven?

George: I wouldn’t if Jesus would stop cheating at cards. He deals off the bottom, that Son of a …ah, um, God.

Connie: Do you think the average man on the street will ever be made aware of all your contributions to the field of music in general and specifically, jazz theory?

George: No.

Connie: Why not?

George: Well, how many people alive today do you think know about my work?

Connie: Well, a precious, but lucky, few.

George: Hmph. And how many people read this “Blog” magazine you’re interviewing me for?

Connie: Um, it’s a website, and well, not many.

George: Whatever. How many readers, exactly?

Connie: Well, um, basically, one. The author’s parents and siblings don’t even read it.

George: Really? Wow. Must be crap!

Connie: Well, we are interviewing you.

George: Point taken.

Connie: Well then, what would it take for people to become more aware of your contributions to jazz?

George: Let’s see... Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber doing a duet of my “Ezz-Thetics” arranged by Ozzy Osbourne on the first ever joint Grammy/Academy Awards show. Hosted by Charlie Sheen, of course.

Connie: I thought you wanted this to be a serious interview?

George: Pink and that other Justin then. I’ll do my own arranging. We can do without Charlie, too. I don’t think the folks up here are going to let him work for a while, anyway.

Connie: Ahem. Any special message for our readers?

George: Well, always remember: Don’t confuse chromatic Lydian with Lydian augmented or Lydian flat-7. The dominant chord functions as a five, but it sounds like a one, whereas in the augmented, you have the case where…

Connie: Ahhh, thank you, George, I think that’s all we have time for.

George: All you have time for, Connie. I’ve got an eternity.

Day 80 – Saturday, March 5 – This is getting serious

Goals: Shim loose pins and continue rough tuning piano

Music: None – I’m tuning a piano here

Things have once again gone from bad to worse. A number of the pins that I shimmed and tune have slipped out of tune and, of course, they are no longer tunable. The shim solution worked, only to a degree. Now I’m not sure if I can use two shims per hole, or if I want to use the bushings that I bought, or if I just want to keep using larger size pins (I still have two more sizes to go before that is no longer an option). Again, I’m not sure what the best route is, so I’m going to call one of my consultants today. Depending on his answer, I may either

-Tune to a half tone or more below concert pitch to lessen the pull of the strings on the pins

-Double up shims with larger pins

-Use bushings

-Make a desk out of the sucker

This is not looking good.

Days 78 and 79 – Saturday and Sunday, February 19 and 20 – Tuning in

Goals: Shim loose pins and continue rough tuning piano.

Music: Ornette Coleman’s “Beauty is a Rare Thing” discs 5 and 6; David Murray’s “Ming” (only for as long as I could stand).

Mrs. S. decided to go out on Saturday and she made it clear that she wanted to see some progress on the piano when she got home. So, I got busy and kept plugging away at the loose pins, badly wound strings, and other issues that are awaiting correction on my piano. The good thing is that now it is nothing more than a repetitious process of determining which strings are untunable because of loose pins, removing the pin, inserting a shim and/or a larger pin, tightening down the pin, rewinding the string and rough tuning it to make sure it will stay.

So that’s what I did, both Saturday and Sunday. I’d say about one third of all the pins require shimming, maybe even one half. I started at middle A and after two days of steady work, I’m up to the highest C on the keyboard, which leaves about seven or eight keys to go (remember: my square grand only goes up to A with its 85 keys) to have the upper half of the keyboard tuned and ready. Then I’ll be ready to do the fifteen keys leading down to the single-wound-string bass notes (33 of those) before moving to the hammers to finish up this project.

I’d be making better progress if not for two things: this re-doing the strings bit is really, really tedious. Just terribly boring, yet requiring full attention and awareness, not only to do the job right, but to keep from getting hurt as the strings are loosened and tightened over those 130 year old pin blocks. The other factor is that I reached all this avant-garde jazz crap at the same time as trying to tune the piano, which, for obvious reasons is basically impossible to do. No one can tell the difference between Bb3 above middle C and B3 with David Murray screeching some crap out of his sax. Turn off the music, work, turn on the music, work, turn off the music – that’s doesn’t get it. I worked in silence on Sunday except for the reverb from the strings and soundboard. It may be like that for a while, now.

Day 77 – Sunday, February 13 – Finally, some success

Goals: Shim loose pins and continue rough tuning piano.

Music: Ornette Colemans’s “Beauty is a Rare Thing” discs 3 and 4.

After making excuses for an entire month (shame on me!), I decided yesterday that I could not put it off any longer, and I needed to try the metal shims I bought and see if they would solve the problem of the loose tuning pins. I found the middle A strings and amazingly, they were still in tune. B-flat right above had one of the problem tuning pins, which I had already removed and left in that state, so I got my tin shears and cut me a tapered shim, quarter inch at the bottom, a little more at the top. I had a little trouble getting it seated at first, and although it was a crisp, tight fit, when I had the pin turned in and strung, it held. I tuned that pair of strings to B-flat and moved to B, C, and C#, all of these needed a shim on both pins. Long story short, it was tedious process, but the metal shims worked on every tuning pin I’ve tried them on so far (tapping forehead in lieu of wood), and my piano is, in fact, tunable. More importantly, I’ve been able to use the wires that I’ve already strung onto the piano, so I’m going to save a lot of work in not redoing all the pins and wires (a scenario I had been trying to mentally prepare for, but which I was increasingly going to face by tearing everything out of the piano and inserting an electronic keyboard instead.

Now, I have every reason (and no excuse not) to work on the thing. It may actually be able to be completed, maybe in just a couple of weeks. I’m praying for bad weather next weekend so I can stay in, drink brandy tea, and work on the sucker. I really want to get everything back inside the piano, up off the floor and finish turning the dining room into a music room. But the piano has to be first, so, no more excuses.