I think he wanted the piano ¼ step sharp to perhaps create some spine-tingling tension? You know, like the fingernails on the chalkboard. None of the other instruments are tuned high as far as I know. This beat-up old piano seems to be taking the tension with no problems. A Baldwin M is pretty beefy for its size...I don't think a larger piano would take it quite so well. Eric Wolfley, RPT Head Piano Technician Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music University of Cincinnati ________________________________ From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Jeff Tanner Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2006 12:38 PM To: College and University Technicians Subject: Re: [CAUT] Adams 1/4 tone sharp piano On Mar 23, 2006, at 11:36 AM, Wolfley, Eric ((wolfleel)) wrote: I found out this morning that the piece they are doing is "On The Transmigration of Souls" whichAdams wrote for the NY Philharmonic after the 9/11 attacks. Premiered Sept., 2002. Does anybody have any insight into just exactly WHY John Adams thought the pitch needed to be 1/4 step sharp? Me thinks that would put unnecessary risk to the stringed instruments as well. And wouldn't you just about have to have wind instruments custom made to tune that sharp? I just pulled the piano up 50 cents with no protests or breakage. I wore eye protection. I'd have probably worn some kind of helmet too, and hoped somebody saw me and realized how silly it was to put a piano tuner in that kind of danger just because a composer thought it might be cute to tune everything up a 1/4 step. I've never tuned a piano this sharp before, but so far - so good. Anybody calculated what the new tension would be on that piano? Jeff Jeff Tanner, RPT University of South Carolina -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/caut.php/attachments/20060323/641468dd/attachment-0001.html
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