# Just saw a piano fall over



## willbb123 (Nov 18, 2008)

We had jazz concert tonight, and I running around getting the lights ready. Some of the musicians and the director was on stage getting ready. I had just walked down the stairs into the house and I hear some one yelling. I turn around and see our rental upright piano falling over. I run up onto stage and see the director on the deck behind it holding his leg. Fortunately there was a doctor in the house, and he checked out the directors leg. I didn't hear anything but he went on with the rehearsal and the show so I assume he is fine.

So I guess he was trying to move the piano from the side, it started to tip and he tried to stop it with his leg. 

It wasn't the best start to the night, luckily he is fine and the show went on. I was talking to our sound guy and he said "I thought the only place pianos fell on people was in road runner cartoons."


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## Sony (Nov 18, 2008)

I'm supprised his leg wasn't broken. I hope you didn't use that piano during the show...it was most likely horribly out of tune after that fall.


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## willbb123 (Nov 18, 2008)

Sony said:


> I'm supprised his leg wasn't broken. I hope you didn't use that piano during the show...it was most likely horribly out of tune after that fall.



We did use the piano, they said that it wasn't that far out of tune. It wasnt miked so it could barely be heard over the rest of the band. Plus there were other problems during the performance... One of the groups brought a little piano amp and a mic. He set it up perfectly... to feed back... Then he left it on stage for the other 3 groups, it continued to feed back when they were geting set up. Then they used that mic for solos, instead of the mics that we had onstage.


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## Van (Nov 18, 2008)

In my long and varied carreer I was once an assistant to a piano mover/tuner. He did the hard work I just helped him move pianos < sounds oxymoronic doesn't it ?> I learned early on that there is a right way and a wrong way to move almost any piano. He taught me some very valuable life lessons, which I still aply to my daily life
1. Never say "OOPS" if you do something wrong just say , "ok", deal with it and move on. People who Buy pianos don't want you to be saying "OOPs" when you're dealing with their baby.

2. A Piano, when dropped, Makes a sound unlike any other piece of furniture in the house. 

Important Piano safety guidelines:
Never move a piano on it's "stock" casters or legs. Most Pianos in multi use halls and auditoriums are on a dolly, specifically made for that type of piano. If your school or facility was / is too cheap to spring for a real factory made piano dolly then tell them to hire a professional piano mover when it comes time to move the piano. Even if it's on a dolly, never force any kind of Grand < baby, full,concert> to roll in a direction it's resisting, to elaborate; If you hit a bump and your baby grand stops, pull back move over and try again. The flanges that hold a Grand Pianos legs in place are made of cast Iron, extremely strong but very brittle. Too mouch lateral stress and they will snap, then you have a 1000 pounds of tumbling ebony and steel on your hands. 
I would go so far as to suggest people get a local piano shop to teach their students exactly how the Pros move a piano, I could describe it here, but until you see it done and have learned out how to do it under professional supervision, it's just as dangerous as rigging without a license < ok maybe not quite as dangerous, unless of course you're flying the piano from the grid.> 

In the Immortal words of Bruce Spain at the Miss NSU pageant ; "Girls that's a 2000 pound piano. If it hit you, it'll kill you. Stay out of the way." 

< God Bless you Bruce, Where ever you are....>


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## elite1trek (Nov 18, 2008)

Van said:


> 2. A Piano, when dropped, Makes a sound unlike any other piece of furniture in the house.



I bet.


Van said:


> < ok maybe not quite as dangerous, unless of course you're flying the piano from the grid.>



Has anybody ever flown a Piano? I hope not. The thought of that scares the crap out of me.

The biggest piano accident I ever had was somebody accidentally smacking it with lineset 16. Pretty Nasty Dent. It was a Baby Grand...a cheapo...but still not cheap.


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## gafftaper (Nov 18, 2008)

Yeah moving a piano is always serious business. I really like Van's suggestion of getting lessons from a piano dealer. In college we used to have to lift an upright into the pit. This took 8-10 people to do correctly. NEVER try to drop an upright piano into a pit in the upright position. Lay it on it's back on the lip of the stage then lift it into the pit. It's way too top heavy to lift in upright. 

--------------------------------------------------------------
Which reminds me of my college T.D.'s favorite piano joke. 

We had this grand piano that was stored way up stage in an office. It was quite a job to get it twisted and turned in all the right directions in order to move it into that office and into it's case. Every time we got it in the office there was always someone on the crew who would eventually say, "Alright now spin it." and my TD would respond, "No, it's a grand." [rim shot] 

If you don't get it and want to improve your piano vocabulary click here.


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## len (Nov 18, 2008)

elite1trek said:


> Has anybody ever flown a Piano? I hope not.



Not exactly. But Emerson, Lake and Palmer back in 1975 sort of did. Only it was a Hammond B-3 and the Keith Emerson used to wrestle it on stage. And Karl Palmer's drum kit would levitate and rotate 360 degrees. While he was playing it.

BTW, what 4 words have never been spoken?

Hand me that piano.


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## jakeshurey22 (Nov 18, 2008)

I was doing a get-in once. 10 of us moving a baby grand piano, just been tuned. All of a sudden you heard STOP STOP STOP, but it was to late, we hadn't noticed that the pit engineers had lowered the pit, so down goes a very very expensive piano, to basically its death ... we caused £500 worth of damage .... =)


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## Van (Nov 18, 2008)

jakeshurey22 said:


> I was doing a get-in once. 10 of us moving a baby grand piano, just been tuned. All of a sudden you heard STOP STOP STOP, but it was to late, we hadn't noticed that the pit engineers had lowered the pit, so down goes a very very expensive piano, to basically its death ... we caused £500 worth of damage .... =)


 Lost control of a baby grand once when moving it from the third floor of a house to the first floor "Parlor", man you get to see a lot of nice houses when you move pianos. Anyway, halfway down the first set of stairs one of the other guys on the top end, with me, loses his grip, < you have to understand that to properly move a piano you remove the legs, the lyre, and then flip it on it's side on a board.> the piano starts sliding, I can't hold it and the guy on the bottom end loses his footing, Thump , Thump,thump, boom! when Jeff and I look up all we can see is Thoms arms and legs sticking out on each side of the piano < keyboard end> The piano is still on its side, We race down to check on him. As we approach he holds up his hand in a "thumbs up" gesture and says " Ok, Good" 

< see above post about never saying oops if you don't get that.>


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## renegadeblack (Dec 8, 2008)

Van said:


> In my long and varied carreer I was once an assistant to a piano mover/tuner. He did the hard work I just helped him move pianos < sounds oxymoronic doesn't it ?> I learned early on that there is a right way and a wrong way to move almost any piano. He taught me some very valuable life lessons, which I still aply to my daily life
> 1. Never say "OOPS" if you do something wrong just say , "ok", deal with it and move on. People who Buy pianos don't want you to be saying "OOPs" when you're dealing with their baby.
> 
> 2. A Piano, when dropped, Makes a sound unlike any other piece of furniture in the house.
> ...



We have what seem to be dollys on our i believe three pianos (there's never a moment at school when you walk into the arts/drama dept and dont hear a piano, i love it, sound guy hates it). Being that we have dollys, does that mean it's OK to just push them like you would a genie? Just want to make sure.


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## avkid (Dec 8, 2008)

renegadeblack said:


> Being that we have dollys, does that mean it's OK to just push them like you would a genie? Just want to make sure.


No, always try to push toward the bottom.


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## TimOlson (Dec 9, 2008)

"unless of course you're flying the piano from the grid.> "

Elton/Billy stadium tour. 2 grand pianos every day. we used CM 1 tons during loadin to get them from the main deck to the riser.

I was always glad to be lighting and not carps for that one!

peace, Tim O


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## Van (Dec 9, 2008)

renegadeblack said:


> We have what seem to be dollys on our i believe three pianos (there's never a moment at school when you walk into the arts/drama dept and dont hear a piano, i love it, sound guy hates it). Being that we have dollys, does that mean it's OK to just push them like you would a genie? Just want to make sure.


 As AVkid said, it's best to push as low as possible on the legs themselves. 
The big issue comes when you approach a threshold on a doorway. If there is a raised Aluminum threshold it's best to try and lift, just a little, the leg that is comming in contact with the threshold. If you don't then all the kinectic energy of that rolling piano is transferred to the legs as lateral force and can snap the cast iron "mortices".


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## giwiens (Dec 10, 2008)

elite1trek said:


> I bet.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The only flying piano I've seen was about 20 years ago when the Vancouver Symphony did a concert in Whistler on Blackcomb mountain. They flew up their concert grand from Vancouver to Whistler under a helicopter. I was sure glad I wasn't in charge.


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## tech2000 (Dec 16, 2008)

I've almost seen several of my techs knock a piano over while moving it through a doorway. Luckily they were smart enough to move infront of it to stop it from falling over.
I have seen a grandmother clock fall facefirst onto the stage though....one of those times when you turn around and just feel somethings going to happen...


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## HCP1 (Dec 17, 2008)

1981.
Summer stock.
Small Town.
Borrowed upright.
Pickup Truck.
TD.
4 interns.
Sour note(s).
Insurance Claim.


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## zuixro (Dec 18, 2008)

HCP1 said:


> Insurance Claim.



Health, Life, Fire, Auto or otherwise?


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## willbb123 (Dec 18, 2008)

I totally forgot to post what the people from the rental company said. I guess that it had been dropped a few times, and left in the rain twice. 
We started talking about how they move pianos up stairs and through windows with cranes. He said "Yea its probably alot like theater, you can do anything if you put your mind to it. Just keep smiling and say yea Ive done this before.


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