Ricky LaPean of Stress Busters Entertainment hosts open mic at Toast @ The Autoport on Tuesdays

Bob Timney hosts the Songwriters’ Open Mic at Kildare’s Irish Pub on Wednesdays

I played at Toast last night and it was a really fun time! My music was well received despite some rather obvious, but comical fumbles. Hopefully if my work permits I’ll be able to check out Bob’s Songwriters Open Mic tonight or next Wednesday. I occasionally write new songs these days, but mostly I just want to play my keyboard because I do love it so much. I’m going through a Beatles phase right now, too, so I’d expect to hear a lot of covers from Sgt Peppers and the White Album from me in the near future. Come and sing along!

We have a busy summer ahead. Our band has been invited to a bunch of ticketed festivals and invited back to one larger festival for a second year in a row. Our winter shows had dramatically improved turnouts compared to last year. Our core group of friends has become stronger and our playing gets better and better. Nothing like the heady romance of a young band doing well! As always, though, I hope we grow slowly so we can sustain the journey — and the party — for as long as possible.

See you at the festies! Peace!

Stream “No Guarantee”

Download audio file (GinaRiggio-NoGuarantee.mp3)

Download “No Guarantee“

This recording also showcases the talents of my friends as well as their generosity. They all worked hard for no pay to help me further my mission to help others who suffer from chronic diseases and to celebrate my regaining control of my life.

The piano used in this recording is actually my childhood piano that I first used when I was learning to play over 20 years ago. “No Guarantee” has a Central Pennsylvania flavor that reflects everything that my life here has helped me become. Thusly, it has a little bit of the past, a little of the present, and a little of the future!

Check out pictures of the recording session here!

Please consider making a charitable donation to
support digestive and autoimmune disease research.

Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation
Autoimmunity Research Foundation
United Ostomy Association of America

Some of my plans upon returning to music include continuing my relationships with the original soul jazz trio Dirty Superb, and folk singer/songwriter Kerri Lee Smith. Of course, my main focus will be playing in and composing songs for Mysterytrain as we continue our crazy, psychedelic journey around Pennsylvania and the surrounding region.

The Wurlitzer restoration process is nearing completion, and I will post photos of that when there is something to photograph.

My 2009 studio project, Ultraviolet Catastrophe, is now available at many popular music retailers and will continue to be throughout my performing hiatus.  I’ve had to quit my job temporarily and am without income so I am hoping the CD sales do well.

Thank you, everyone, for all the love and support you have shown me during this difficult time in my life I will see you when I’m back and better than ever in Spring 2011! Peace!

I finally ordered some items from Vintage Vibe to start fixing up the Wurli. All I’ve done so far is replace all of the damper felts, the volume knob, and coated the insides with metal tape. It really didn’t take that much time and was pretty inexpensive. It turns out the 700 Series is basically the same inside as the 120 Series, and the 120 has cheaper parts than the more popular 200. There is still some engineering work to be done on it, which I will probably post about sometime later, also with pictures.

The old felts basically disintegrated to the touch so it was pretty easy to remove them. I used a nail file to get the remaining bits of 50 year old glue off of the wood. I must say, the new damper felts definitely make a world of difference in the sound! I have included a video to show you the difference between the sound of the notes with and without the felts. Notice how it sounds all eerie and sustained without them, and a lot more crisp with them.

Another thing I did was coat the under side of the lid, the front piece, the surface above the space containing the electrical parts, and the back piece (the part that doesn’t show) with metal tape in order to construct a “Faraday shield” to prevent some of the humming. This probably won’t be enough to get rid of all of it without some other work on the power supply, which my dad will take care of. He’s also going to connect all of the now-metal surfaces with other wiring to complete the shield.

We also replaced the potentiator, which Vintage Vibe did not carry. My dad managed to find a comparable one somewhere else and now there is no more popping when I turn on the piano.

I recently acquired a 700 Series Wurlitzer Piano, since the baby boomers and their parents bought enough stuff to fulfill not only their wants but those of the generations to come. It’s one of the spinet models from 1959-1963,which means it is totally heavy, totally inconvenient, and totally awesome. I’ve decided to document the restoration process right here for your viewing pleasure. Thanks in advance to my dad who is both a professional engineer and a professional packrat. He has been helping me with the electrical aspects of the process since I don’t have top notch mechanical intuition.

The first order of business was to figure out why the internal amp was humming and crackling. We first removed the back, top, and front of the Wurlitzer to clean out all of the dust and locate the wires that connected to the volume knob and the 1/4″ output. The volume knob (or “potentiator” as I learned) and output were really dirty, so we cleaned it with an air duster and electrical switch and contact cleaner. That got rid of a lot of the crackling, but eventually the potentiator will have to be replaced because cleaning it will only hold off this problem temporarily. My dad says this is a classic problem with potentiators and dirt can permanently damage them, so we are going to order a replacement.

There was still a significant amount of humming, but it didn’t seem like there was a problem with the grounding. It wasn’t until I accidentally leaned on the dimmer switch for the living room light and turned it off that the humming stopped and we realized what was going on. The piano can’t be played anywhere near a light bulb with a dimmer switch because it will interfere with the input. Covering the input with the wood top won’t make a difference because wood isn’t a good shield. Regular light switches don’t cause the same problem.

Instead of strings, the hammers hit metal reeds which vibrate like tuning forks. They are sandwiched between a receiver and an insulator and the sound goes from there to an input wire which goes to the amp. I also learned that the Wurlitzer has three different outputs for external speakers – a 1/4″ inch jack with a switch that allows you to bypass the internal amp, a regular 1/4″ jack, and an RCA output. The Wurlitzer is somewhat like the electric guitar of pianos, except a guitar is electromagnetic and the Wurli is electrostatic.

The next task was to do a better job grounding the Wurlitzer, since it was built before three-prong grounded power cables existed. We removed the whole power unit…thing… (pictured to the right) and noticed that the transformer was taped on. My dad thought someone had used paper between the case and the transformer to ground the unit and just taped it back on instead of bolting it down. So, he removed the tape and paper, bolted it down, and soldered on a three-prong input so now the piano can be plugged in using a modern computer cable.

Unfortunately, once the unit was plugged back in, a very loud humming sound occurred and the fuse blew. So, apparently the paper did serve a purpose other than grounding and may have been put there by the manufacturer once the design flaw was discovered. If anybody has an alternate opinion about this issue, leave it in the comments. Meanwhile, he replaced the fuse and insulated the transformer with carpet tape where the paper used to be . He also took off the adapter for the computer cable and soldered back on a 2-prong cord which is what the system was built for. Further modifications might be needed before it can handle a 3 prong grounded cable.

The damper felts also need to be replaced. After the hammer strikes a reed, a wooden arm with a foam pad on the end drops down onto the reed to halt the sustain. After several decades of neglect, the felts disintegrated and are now not doing their job of dampening the sound after a key is struck. Therefore, it sounds like the sustain pedal is stuck “ON” and all of the notes bleed together. In the picture to the left you can see how one felt is chewed up and the other is totally gone. Hopefully I can find a restoration kit that contains these things that I need. I’m also considering buying this repair and restoration DVD.

All of the pictures can be enlarged for a more detailed view by clicking on them.

I’m also excited to release these new tracks ( just piano and vocals for now) for free download on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and on this website when the mixing is complete. There may or may not also be video included. A friend of mine filmed the session and I’ll have that up for free download as well, provided I don’t look like a huge dork. (I haven’t seen the footage yet.)

In other news, I’ve been discussing a collaboration between myself and the guitar/didge duo Steam City Riders. Mysterytrain, of course, is busy as always and has every weekend booked for the entire summer. Phew! I get tired just thinking about it. All in all, this is looking like it will be an exciting year for me.

Of course, there is no cover charge to get in, but we do ask that attendees make a donation.  100% of the tips will go to The AIDS Project of Centre County to help them raise funds to reinstate free HIV testing for everyone, rather than just high risk cases.

Please make this event memorable by showing up and bringing friends. I’d like to do it again sometime and continue the momentum of generosity in the community, especially during such difficult times. See you on April 7th!