Tuning in the Age of Covid

Record-breaking events:
The First Time Someone Has Come Into Our House Since Lockdown!
The First Time the Piano Has Been Tuned In At Least 20 Years!

A very nice young man came to tune our nearly hundred year old piano. It’s a player piano, which explains the innards you see. The box in the center holds the piano roll, paper that has been punched and coded with a song. It hooks onto the bottom roll, and when the pedals, which are accessed behind the sliding door at the bottom, are pushed, the template unrolls, air is forced through the holes, through all those tubes. Keys are struck. Music is made! This is probably not the most technical of explanations, but you can have a heck of a good time on this thing. It’s also a good workout, as those pedals need to be pressed with gusto to get it to work. Better than a stationery bike! I’ve got a couple boxes of old rolls from the 20s and 30s, but they make contemporary songs as well. Some years ago we visited a piano roll factory in Buffalo, NY, and were fascinated by the entire process. No one really works on the mechanical parts of these instruments any more. The guy was here only to tune, and he did, and all is well. We kept the windows and doors open, everyone wore masks, and lots of sanitizer and wipes prevailed.
I’ve added a full front view of the piano in extras so you can see all the complications.