Or How I learned to love my work while tuning pianos
Because the piano recently celebrated its 300 th anniversary, there has been much written about its history. A suggestion was made by one author that the piano could be considered a perfect symbol of western civilization in modern times. So many inspired human qualities have combined to create the piano and I often reflect upon these physical characteristics during a tuning.
At the beginning of my apprenticeship as a piano tuner I was told that I would have to tune a thousand pianos before I would achieve a respectable temperament and tuning. That was just about true although I never really counted. An average number per day multiplied over a period of time seemed close enough when my teacher and I were pleased with consistent equal temperament tunings. ‘ Repetitio mater studiorum est’ . A motto used frequently in the teaching studio to spur on the student in English means ‘repetition is the mother of study/learning’. This was certainly true of learning to tune pianos.
At first while still learning I concentrated on listening to string vibrations and the beating that ensued, while harmonics and partials were lurking in the shadows complicating things further. Emptying my mind of words became a ritual practice during a tuning which simplified and streamlined the process for me. This is the ‘Zen’ component of piano tuning – to be one with the vibrating string.
Now that I feel comfortable and confident enough with my skills there are times that I do some thinking and speculating during a tuning. Every piano has a unique personality and trying to pinpoint what makes it so can provide plenty of mental entertainment through the process. Because not all pianos are created equally, there are plenty of design comparisons to study while servicing the instruments.
The piano is a creation and plaything of us humans changing through time at definable moments and places. It is a big case full of mechanical gadgets – a machine really developed by innumerable people. The Italian Bartolomeo Cristofori was a harpsichord maker credited for the invention of the piano forte.
In the hire of Prince Ferdinande de’Medici (remote descendant of the ‘Magnificent Lorenzo’) he set about finding a loud/soft alternative to the monotonous harpsichord. Circa 1700 .
Even though it was the Italians who so sought after expression, it took the Germans to pick up the somewhat flawed invention and smooth out its difficult qualities. Apparently the Christofori action was hard to play and quite noisy. Drawings of keyed instruments exist from the 15 th century so there were forerunners of this idea of a keyed hammer-instrument but it had been in the air for some time.
Because the Germans did the most experimenting and developing the original design during the middle half of the 18 th century, the Italian credit was obscured for some time. Even Beethoven wrote in 1816 that the pianoforte was certainly a German invention probably voicing a generally held view. Not until the middle of the 19 th century was Cristofori given credit for the achievement.
The fundamental purpose of developing the pianoforte was to aid musical expression with the potential for soft and loud. Central to expression seems to be the human voice – the archetype of all musical expression. When praising the quality of a performance the highest compliment is always ‘the instrument was made to sing’. The pianoforte could finally arouse these emotions and there is something about intensity of tone that appeals to us. This has been taken for granted for a long time but this dynamic of soft and loud is the chief element of what is generally called musical expression.
While tuning I have the luxury of pondering these historical tidbits and often try to spot the evolutionary developments as I go. All in all there is a visceral and intellectual experience that I feel fortunate to have each day.