| Sunny Side Up June 5, 2002 � 2001 by Kathleen Gibson Souls need regular tuning too Ugh. Beethoven would have broken his baton over my fingers. They�re disgustingly rusty since I stopped teaching piano to write full-time. But today�s sour sound is more the fault of the piano than the fingers. That high e-flat is far too flat. So is everything above it. It�s been years since the last tuning. The tuner arrives, equipment in one hand. He�s giving me a deal because I have two pianos. I should be grateful, but this is still costing well over a hundred smackers. I decide to watch, get a little show for my money. He sits on the bench, trots his fingers up the keys. One corner of his mouth slides toward his ear, and the corresponding eye closes on top of it. His nose is crunched in the middle. Pain, if I ever saw it. �Been a while, has it?� �I know. It�s awful, isn�t it?� I feel guilty, as if I should have been flossing between the keys or something. He shrugs, irons out his face, removes the wood flap above the keyboard. Peers inside, looking for the signature and date left by the last tuner, nods as if he thought so. I move in for a better view. Gerhard Heintzman, Toronto, say the raised brass letters. 1877. There are gazillion little hammers that look like wooden shoes attached to peg legs � upside down. And hundreds of wires, and red felt flaps sticking out like so many miniature tongues, and wee silver springs � I�ve never noticed those before. There must be a thousand metal tuning pegs. �How come there�s so many pegs when there�s only eight-eight keys?� I blurt. �Ahem,� he says. I shut up. He sets up his electronic tuner, picks out a small wrench and begins, plunking each key repeatedly, turning the wrench, slow and sure. He plunks and turns, plunks and turns his way up the piano, all the while watching the red needle on the electronic box quiver like a nervous lip - waiting for it to wobble home. I leave him for an hour. When I return he�s poised to test his work. I brace myself for the typical tuner�s ditty. They can�t play. Everybody knows that. But he spins out a tidy piece of what sounds like Gershwin and I swallow my uncharitable thought. He pulls out a pencil, signs and dates the brass, right beside the heavily embossed GH, close to the last signature. It�s the tuner�s way. They�ve done it for centuries. �I was here and this is when,� each scribble says. Then he reassembles the piano. After he�s gone, I dash like a kid between both pianos. Bach on the Yahama, an old hymn on the Heintzman. They haven�t sounded like this for years. I�d forgotten the magnificence of a freshly tuned piano. I want to burst into song. Then I realize it - that Gershwin-playing piano tuner just gave me a refresher course in basic care of one�s soul. I think I didn�t pay him enough. You can respond to this column at [email protected] |
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