May 23rd
Went with my friend Árpád to move some pianos.
Piano 1
We moved a Ritmüller (East European, not Chinese) piano from his workshop to the monastery, where we were to haul it up the stairs. We rode the piano on a trolley from his place to the monastery. A ten minute walk. It’s always nice to walk the road with a piano, so that was quite enjoyable. Once there, we prepared ourselves to carry it up a wide spiral staircase. It looked scary, and long – at least 40 steps. We did our very best, but about 11 steps in, the piano started tilting and it literally got stuck – it was lying on its back and we could not move up or down anymore. We decided we put too much on our plate and gave up on the idea to move it all the way, so we (while both holding the piano, trying to keep it where it was), discussed how to get it down. It was an interesting talk, since we were both straining muscles to prevent it from slipping down. Somehow, we managed to bring the piano back to the ground, without any damage. Kinda disappointed that we had to give up, but we both agreed it was the wisest thing to do. We left the piano at the bottom of the stairs and will look in to another way to get it to the top of those stairs, sometime next week or so.
Piano 2
We took the trolley and walked with it to our next stop: a Rippen (1985) piano was to be hauled from the stairs from a second storey. Steep steps, heavy job, but we managed. Then, we walked with the piano to The Yellow Hippo Studios – a half an hour walk (taking a coffee break in the middle).
That done, we walked – another half hour dragging the trolley – to our last stop:
Piano 3
In an apartment building, a Thürmer (1950’s, Germany) piano had to be moved down one flight of stairs. Piece of cake. Not … when we arrived, we found out that: ‘the upstairs neighbour’ lived 3(!) storeys above the piano’s new home. So, instead of a single flight of stairs, there were 6. Totally knackered, beat, very sweaty – but satisfied – we called it a day.
May 24th
Woke up, feeling sore all over – which was not really a bad feeling, but sore nonetheless. When I was walking to my studio for the lessons, I realized that my hauling days were not over yet! There were two piano’s that needed moving! One DOWN the stairs, and another one up. The one to go up, was yesterday’s Rippen – the one down, a Fazer (also 1985). I have walked these stairs many a time – WITH and without carrying a piano. Despite the soreness in pretty much my whole body, both went fine. I just wonder how sore I feel tomorrow. Or not, of course.
Cheers.