The Old Girl is Giving You Everything She's Got...

In May, we inherited a piano that has been in my stepfather's family since it was made in 1901 (1911?)

Baz was an instant fan:

 He did not care that it was out of tune.

 He played it and played it. Well, "played" it.

I finally managed to call a cleaner/repair/tuner man and he spent 3 hours on Tuesday cleaning, repairing, and tuning.

 Movement before. I wish I had gotten more pictures of the amount of dust inside (at least 50 years in some places) but I was trying not to hover and also to keep the curious toddler out of their hair.

Movement after: note the red bits on the hammers? (The tops aren't dusty, those are felt.) We are all breathing easier knowing where we stand with this particular heirloom.

He "tuned her to where she's at" - which is "about nine cents flat." (That thing up there being clamped is a sharp/flat key that need gluing. The handle thing is a tuning tool - he's using the ear of the computer to tune; it was an impressive piece of software.

I am not possessing of a trained ear, but even I can tell it sounds better. Heck, it sounded better after it had been seen to be a shop-vac. Husband says it's lost some of its Honky-Tonk, but still "has a little Honk" and is now "Good for Blues and Gospel." SO....I'm off to find a Johnny Cash songbook. And Bill Withers. And Nina Simone.

Unrelated to the piano, the two best Blues Dances of my LIFE were to these two songs:

and (this is an awesome video, btw. Totally worth watching.)