I was trying to tune a very old Steinway Grand a while back that desperately needed rebuilding; the owner didn't want to invest the rebuilding project. There were some strings missing and others looked suspect. While raising the pitch a bass string broke. Since the lid was open, the string exited out the back end of the piano. This man had lost his wife the previous year and decided that he would leave his Christmas tree up all year long. Since he didn't want to deal with decorations which his wife had taken care of in the past, he just left it standing fully ornamented. After I searched for quite a while on the floor for the missing string, he joined me on all fours looking here and there. I finally spotted something unusual in his tree. Sure enough, the string had wrapped itself around some of the branches. Even though it didn't detract from the ornamentation of the tree, I removed it since I needed to order a replacement.

Back in the 80's I tuned pianos for Church on the Rock in Rockwall. They had a large grand in their Sanctuary which was heavily played. Once during a church service while being played a bass string broke and flew out the rear of the piano and just missed the pastor's wife who was sitting nearby. It would be interesting to know if the string broke at some emphatic point in the service. When tuning, I warn people about sitting or walking in the line of trajectory which is behind on grand pianos. Of course closing the lid would keep an errant string from flight. With vertical pianos there is not a problem since the piano is totally enclosed.

Some things that are found in a piano are better off not mentioned. One time I found a snake skin in the bottom of a lady's vertical piano. As I pulled it out for inspection she asked, "What is that!". She wasn't happy with the answer since one starts to wonder where the snake might have gone. She said to not tell her if I found something similar in the future. Another time I found a mouse skeleton which was well preserved. The guy owner was quite intrigued with its intricacies. He didn't want me to dispose of it as I recall. I found some mouse remains in the piano's action on a vertical piano one time. There was still some smell to it, but the lady was glad to know where the odor was coming from. She had thought that something had died in her walls and had various people searching her home to track it down.