We think that we know the places that we live.  They are familiar to us by site, sound, smell, and feel.  But (if you are lucky) every now and then you come across a side of your home town that you have never seen before, and your eyes are opened…

I was lucky enough to be taken to visit a very unusual building.  It is almost in the CBD of Sydney, but the owners (whoever they are!) don’t seem to care about it.  It is home to a mix of people, but it is as far from your average apartment building as you could imagine, half squat, half artists commune, half… something else (yes, that’s three halves, but it seems strangely appropriate for this place).

The roof of the building has become an amazing art space for graffiti.  Uncontrolled, no rules, yet civilised in a manner that society at large may be uncomfortable with.  Don’t forget to click on each image to see them full size and enjoy the photos.

John.

Ok, it’s an excuse to post a photo with no top on, but what they heck, I’ll do it anyway.

I am working on a project to build a large cupboard at the moment and it was pretty hot last week, so no shirt!  Ripping a 2.4 meter long sheet of 18mm thick ply wood into two pieces was really hard work by hand, but prefer to use hand tools.  Reliable, simple, and a skill that I think is worth having.  By contrast, cutting these shelves was easy going.

John.

My partner’s piano has (ever since she can remember) had one key (the A6) that was out of tune.  Inevitably it’s a key that many pieces of music require.

Recently (while watching the remake of the movie Total Recall) I heard a piece from Beethovan’s Tempest (Sonata No. 17) and suggested to S that she should learn to play it.  If you don’t know the piece you can see a rendition of the Total Recall version (played much slower than the original) here on Youtube:

Of course Tempest requires A6, so yesterday – in the face of stern warnings to the contrary on a label inside the piano – we set about attempting to tune that key.

The piano is an upright, a Beale Vader semi grand.  It is over 100 years old based on the serial number, and despite not having been tuned in at least 50 years (if ever) it is still surprisingly in good tune (mind you this was the Beale’s claim to fame that it would hold its tune come hell or high water, which seems to be true!).  Apart from one key.

Thanks to modern technology tuning things is much easier than it once was.  For instance, to get the note right, I simply downloaded a tuning app (called G-String) to my phone.

The g-string app works a treat. No need for an expensive dedicated tuner.

Tuning a piano if you have the right tools is not really a difficult task.  It’s like tuning a guitar, only you can’t sit it on your lap.  Each key has three strings behind its hammer and all of the strings have to be tuned to the desired note to create that wonderful, crisp, unique piano sound.

I made up some wedges to mute the two strings that weren’t being tuned and we set to work.  The result was good, not perfect, as one string was fractionally higher than the other two, but definitely a serious improvement over its tone before tuning.

And as to the question: do you always tune pianos in the nude?  Well, maybe ;-)

John.

I have put off buying a digital SLR camera for a long time.  The rate of improvement in that technology has been astounding, so I held back to try to let the market mature and settle down a bit.

A week ago I decided that enough was enough.  The focus of my Canon point and shoot A1000 (a fantastic little camera that was very cheap) started playing up.  So I bit the bullet and bought a Canon EOS 550 Digital SLR.  It just arrived today and I have to say that I am very impressed.  I have snapped a few shots with it and the results are great.

This photo was taken on the terrace at home with the fruit trees.  It was never meant to be publish (hence the rough clothes), but I rather like the way it came out, so I thought that I would share it.

More photos to come!  I am looking forward to having a good play with this camera and seeing what it can achieve.  I have been wanting to do another nude shoot for some time and this is the perfect opportunity.

John.