Dear Doctor, can you suggest a mechanical music oriented holiday?
Why bother splashing out on going to Amsterdam. After having a few screws out you can get plenty rubber, leather and filth inside any old pianola. And while we’re on the subject why bother going all the way to Amsterdam for drugs. You can get the same woozy effect from listening to any Meloto dance roll played slowly with the sustain pedal jammed down with a biro. Alternately see your dealer about scoring you a roll of Beethoven’s Eighth.
Dear Doctor, a vicar recently donated several cases of hymn rolls to me. What should I do?
What a dirty trick! “Donate” them straight back and give the man a stern ticking off while you’re about it too! This is all just another sad example of the lengths some folks’ll go to in trying to dispose of old hymn rolls. Dressing up as vicar, indeed!
Dear Doctor how may I convert my player piano to remote control?
Buy an old vacuum cleaner motor from Honest Jim. Bung it up the backside of the piano connected to the a long electric lead with a table lamp switch half way along the cable. This is your main remote control. Take two long pieces of string and tie one to the play/rewind and the other to the tempo. Fit two pulleys on the ceiling and run the string up to the ceiling and across the room to the comfort of your easy chair and down again. It is possible to fit other pulleys to the ceiling so the strings dangle down conveniently above your chair. You might fit these with a tassel or for a more antique look perhaps a chain and pull ring from an old overhead loo cistern.
Dear Doctor, if I play a roll which requires a lot of deft manipulation of the tempo lever my false arm often scratches the wood. Is there anything I can do?
Cut a large “Y” shape about 8 inches high from some 1/8″ sheet metal. Drill a hole at the bottom of the “Y” then screw it with some washers to the front of the piano. If you rest your false arm in the “Y” you’ll find it will pivot left and right permitting tempo lever manipulation whilst keeping your false arm a safe distance from scratching the wood again.
Dear Doctor, I was lying on the floor under my newly restored Ampico grand giving the pump a final test to solve a slight knocking noise. I knocked off a hose and my wig was immediately sucked into the pump. What can I do to stop this happening again? The knocking noise has since ceased.
Dear Reader, from a point of expediency it will be financially beneficial to buy a new wig. I can add no more.
Dear Doctor, half-way through a roll on my Orchestrelle I had had enough. I opened the spool box but the gust of pressured air blew my wig off. What can I do to stop this happening again?
Dear Reader, the wind-supply on rewind should divert solely to the roll motor and organ but away from the spoolbox. You will need to adjust the mechanism slightly.
Dear Doctor, I was recently at the Chelsea Flower Show and was wondering what plants you might suggest I place atop my pianola?
Dear Reader, one should strive to avoid a cut floral arrangement for it is the musical equivalent of a roll of Schulz E. Fleur’s “Arabest in the Blue Danube” and only suitable for the vulgar harpsichord. Try stripy sansiverias for Sheraton inlaid satinwood Stecks and weeds for a Welte for novelty. I have air-plants growing in the sconces of my burr-coconut Dale Thirty.
Dear Doctor, my ivories keep coming loose, what can I do.
Dear Reader, a few years back this happened to me. I left the piano fall open overnight and in the morning found 5 ivories gone. The tooth fairies had half-inched them to finish off a picket fence at the bottom of the garden (where they were building an ivory tower style residence). To be fair they left a ten-bob-note under my pillow. The trick is to close the fall. Fairies are magic and can get through this but they can’t extract the ivory through wood hence loosened ivories stay in situ. This worked for me but do sleep with your mouth closed. Closing the fall so enraged my faerie filchers that they snuck into my room several nights later. In the morning I was missing a dozen of my teeth and they’d left a set of falsies in a glass by the bed with a fiver under it.
