{pursuits in piano-land}

And so, several weeks ago, I began to pray specifically about what the Lord would have me be working on, and I started looking into the possibility of becoming a piano tech. I had thought about pursuing it after graduating several years ago, but didn’t really have the “let’s do this!” mentality at the time.

I wrote to several schools to get more information, and had narrowed it down to two possible schools. I knew that I didn’t want to get any sort of student loans, but wanted to be able to pay for the schooling myself, so I wrote next inquiring about financial aid. The president of my top choice of the schools and I began to exchange emails, and I found out that I would indeed qualify for a discount/financial aid with them. As we continued to write back and forth, the Lord allowed for the topic of Christianity to come up, and I found out she was saved as well. That was absolutely amazing! It’s always a blessing to meet other Christians around the world, whether in person or online.

I enrolled in school, and anxiously awaited for the first lesson and materials to show up. In the meantime, I had already ordered a tuning kit, and knew I would need a toolbox. Off to Wally World I went. 🙂 When I got there, I found a huge waterproof toolbox that was on sale for 1/2 off, and would accommodate the various tools and basic parts I would need as I begin to put together my business. Once again, God had opened the door up even further by allowing me to begin to acquire the various things I would need and at a fraction of the cost. It’s still amazing to me.

While still waiting, I decided I would go ahead and open up our piano and start seeing what all was broken, begin cleaning things, etc. to be ready to jump right into tuning and repair. Here are a few photos from the “first look”:

I found quite a few interesting finds while in there. This is one of my favorites:

It’s where a piano tuner had tuned the piano back in 1948. My name is now signed under his, along with the date I began the repairs. =] It’s starting to make everything feel more “real”. 🙂

I also found a buffalo nickel, a wheat penny, and several hair pins….

It’s been amazing to start looking at how each little piece works together to make music. I’m still in absolute amazement. 🙂

My tools and first lesson finally arrived, and I set right to studying and beginning to learn how it all works.

To start learning how all the little pieces of the piano actions work, I made an art piece for my room that hangs by my bed. That allows me to see all the pieces of the action along with their names so that I can memorize them faster, hopefully. 🙂

I’ve been peeking over into the inside of pianos to find their serial numbers at thrift stores and other places, and have been looking those up to determine their age so that I can get better at guessing the age of pianos…

And of course, just practicing the tuning:

I tuned 7 of the keys (21 strings), and then got frustrated because there was a sticky key next on one side and a dead key on the other, and it was making it extremely difficult to tune. There was only one thing to do…take the action assembly out to start making the repairs. 🙂

I have discovered thus far that there is quite a lot of glue failure, and some broken parts within the action assembly:

With that, I’ve been gluing broken pieces and am waiting on my replacement bridle straps to come in so that I can begin the repairs. I’m hoping they will be expedient in their arrival. I’m strongly considering replacing all the felts and hammers now as well. I so want to breath life into this piano-o-mine. It’s got rather strong sentimental value for me, and I’d sure love to hear it sing once more. <3 I'm planning on continuing to photo-blog my process through school and through the piano repairs, so if you're on Instagram and would like to follow along, I'm on there as thepianopractitioner.

I can’t wait to see how God continues to open this door. I’m looking forward to working on many pianos in the future, the Lord willing. I continue to be amazed at how fulfilling and wonderful this process has been so far. It’s truly been a blessing. <3

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