SANTA BARBARA CHAPTER

February Meeting: (2nd Monday)
Date: Monday, February 11, 2019
Time: 6:30 pm (note earlier time)
Location: Ashly Piano Crafts
416 Bryant Circle, Suite N, Ojai CA 93023

The Santa Barbara Chapter met on January 14th. We are thrilled to share that Benjamin Sanchez, our Chapter Vice-President, recently took and passed his tuning exam! It is worth noting that the exam prep setting in CyberTuner assumes a 6'+ grand, so practicing on anything other than that will yield funky results. We explored the idea of mini repair clinics, mostly for the benefit of less experienced members. A few members offered shadow time in their workshops, and we considered the idea of the chapter acquiring a craigslist piano that we could tinker with.

In our technical segment, we talked about when to issue a 1099 and some ideas regarding tax categories for income and expenses. It was noted that the actual categories you come up with and use are less important than the numbers adding up.

We discussed cleaning strings at some length, prompted by an experience-based reminder that Brasso and other brass cleaners will ruin bass strings. We discussed methods for re-enlivening bass wire without replacing them, such as boiling (technically works, but far too labor intensive) and a jostle-and-twist.

Benjamin shared his side-voicing pliers from PianoForte, with which he has had success in knocking down metallic harshness when used right under the crown.

For our program, Chapter President Charles Hudson shared images from his 2nd year at North Bennett, which was spent entirely on a full rebuild/restoration of a grand piano. It was a fascinating process to see, which we rarely do in its entirety.

Jim Connolly shared additional insights regarding tuning for projection. He said that always listening that way is exhausting, and he now uses fewer strikes, at a softer volume, tuning more toward the end of the note than right at the attack. He finds this to be less stressful on the tuner and the piano, and his stability tests so far have indicated that his tunings are at least as stable as they were before. His interest is in finding a full sound with a "core" for each note, rather than chasing down a spatial position for the sound.

Our next meeting will be on Monday February 11th at 6:30 pm (note the earlier time) at Ashly Piano Crafts. The program will be collaborative on SHANK REPAIR, so everyone is encouraged to bring any kind of broken shank and the means or techniques to fix it. Tools and glues will be available if all you bring is broken stuff.

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