[CAUT] "Introduction" & Recent Experiences in Concert Tuning

[David Ilvedson]

Micheal,

We know you had a window from 12 noon to 4 pm?   You said at 3 pm the artist arrived "early".    You arrived 1&1/2 hours late...your bad.    You were able to get though it twice in an 1&1/2 hours...pretty good.   The third pass was the fine tuning....I'm all for aural tuning under the right conditions, BUT, some sort of ETD could have gotten your piano in the ballpark well under an hour with NO stress, at which time you could proceed through your aural tuning at your leisure and probably be finishing up as the artist walks...just my opinion on the right tools at the right time....;-]   

I don't tend to bark at the artist...no matter what.   

David Ilvedson, RPT
Pacifica, CA  94044

----- Original message ----------------------------------------
From: "Michael Magness" <IFixPianos at yahoo.com>
To: caut <caut at ptg.org>
Received: 10/25/2007 11:46:19 PM
Subject: [CAUT] "Introduction" & Recent Experiences in Concert Tuning


>I offer this as perhaps some food for thought for the committee as they
>ponder the why's and how's of the CAUT test.
>I had done some concert tuning here and there when asked to but most of it
>had been handled by the older more established techs in the area and then
>about 35 years ago I began tuning for a school district, a rather large
>district with at the time eight grade schools feeding students into the one
>Jr. high and High school. The high school had a 1000 seat theatre with stage
>lighting, no fly loft but decent acoustics, the aisles were carpeted and all
>of the seats were plushly padded. A few years after I began there they
>traded off the Steinway O and 5'11" Chickering and acquired, with the help
>of a local philanthropic fund four new p-22's and a new Yamaha C3. Within a
>couple of years they began the concert series, this wasn't affiliated with
>the school but the concerts were held in the high school theatre. The
>concert association was a non-profit group of volunteers, the concerts were
>available to ticketholders only and tickets only available by the season.
>The first 2 years they had groups that didn't use a piano. The 3rd season
>began in early November with a concert pianist, I was to tune the day of the
>concert, I had no special instructions. I knew the grand hadn't been tuned
>since the previous March and had intended on being there by noon. My morning
>tuning ran long and I arrived at 1:30, I quickly pulled it to pitch, rough
>tuned it then began to go through a second time more slowly, I finished that
>one. It was now almost 3. I began a 3rd time through this to be the finish
>tune, I was a half hour into it and the pianist arrived, early. He
>introduced himself, looked at the piano asked how it was going I said fine
>and he walked away. Ten minutes later he was back, "Are you almost
>finished"? I told him no it would be a while yet. He left and 15 minutes
>later he was back again wanting to know if I was almost done, I repeated no
>it would be a while yet. Again he left and 15 minutes later he was back
>again, was I done yet? When I tune I concentrate, I tune aurally and I tend
>to have a unibrow which I furrow and I guess it was still furrowed when I
>turned to him, he wasn't a very tall man and I am 6'4" so we were about the
>same height with me sitting on the bench and I said to him "Look pal, you
>can have it good or you can have it fast"! He looked at me for moment turned
>and walked away and wouldn't come near me the rest of the time I was
>there! The association prez thought it highly amusing. I like to call that
>my intro to concert work. Over the years I've tuned for many in that venue,
>at other schools and the University of Wisconsin at LaCrosse. I was at a
>Guild meeting when my cell phone rang and it was a director from a high
>school I hadn't done any work for in years. He was in a jam, the Luther
>College band was playing at his school that evening and gosh they'd just
>realized the piano was out of tune! What were they performing? Rhapsody in
>Blue, it was 4:30, curtain time was 7 and I was an hour away. He had called
>everyone else in the phonebook and I was the only one who answered! So I
>beat it back, got there at 5:25, the piano was a KG-2 about 6 or 7 years old
>that he SAID was tuned 2 weeks prior for another concert. It was a full 25
>to 30c flat over the entire range, I had a rider with me a guy who was just
>getting into tuning, a real newbie, he just stood and watched me crank
>through this thing. I pulled it sharp and sharper and sharper still, all the
>way up pounding and pounding as I went and it stayed put for the most part,
>I went through the bass twice then went back through it checking for ones
>that hadn't held and redoing them. The audience was filtering in at 6:50
>when I finished and I got a little round of applause, I hate when that
>happens! A few weeks later I got a call from UW-L to do the Kawai GS-60 for
>someone, I didn't get the name, on a Sunday at 11:00AM, the artist wanted to
>use the piano for a few hours first, untuned then she would finish at 11 and
>I could tune. I said OK, I'll be there. He said that's all? I said yes is
>there more? he said no I just thought you might wonder why she wants to play
>on the untuned piano. I told him I stopped asking why about 25 years ago, I
>just ask where and when, I leave the why to the music majors, I'm a
>right-brained person working in their left-brained world. I'm a practical,
>even-tempered, common-sense kind of guy and why she wants to spend a few
>hours playing on an untuned piano may make sense to me or it may not but if
>she wants to it's none of my business why! I arrived about 1/2 hour early
>that Sunday and it became very apparant why. She and her 2 sisters all
>Juilliard trained from early ages when they came to this country, one on
>violin, one cello and this one on piano. The others could practice anytime
>in their hotel rooms or a small room somewhere but this one needed a piano,
>preferably a grand. Watching her I saw she was trying new material, playing
>with a recorded piece, trying it several times over and over. This was her
>practice time and the piano didn't need to be in perfect tune because she
>wasn't playing perfect pieces. Precisly at 11 she stopped and began
>gathering her music, the sound tech went up with me to introduce me and
>after we shook hands she said, "it's out of tune". I told her yes it would
>be it hasn't been tuned since the last concert 6 weeks ago. She didn't
>respond just walked away.
>So what do these illustrate to the committee? Probably not to consider
>me<grin>. Seriously find a way to test the cool of the would-be CAUT's, I
>believe that is every bit as important as concert ability or tuning seven
>pianos the last as well as the first. Cool under pressure, some would say I
>snapped at the man in the first story. I did nothing of the kind, he was
>interrupting my "concert" if you will and I simply let him know I didn't
>care for it and gave him a choice. Perhaps the real question would be after
>he/she tunes that seventh if you asked her/him to adjust a pedal on your
>practice piano, would he/she smile and do so ask if it could wait until
>tomorrow or tear your head off? More importantly after tuning seven pianos
>which would she/he be entitled to do?

>Are Caut's second class citizens or do they have a right to say, I've worked
>enough hours today, it can wait until tomorrow.

>I have, when I'm tuning for a concert stopped when the stage noise got too
>bad and asked in a VERY loud voice, "Am I bothering your conversations by
>tuning here"???? Sometimes it takes a few moments but it gets very quiet and
>stays that way for a while and if I stop again, so does the conversation!

>There are times when you have to get the job done quickly no muss no fuss,
>times when you have to make your point to get your job done and times when
>you just keep your head down, say little and get in do your job and get out.
>Mike
>-- 
>Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing
>is to not stop questioning.-- Albert Einstein



>Michael Magness
>Magness Piano Service
>608-786-4404
>www.IFixPianos.com
>email mike at ifixpianos.com