Corea Concert anywhere

[Antares]

I have, as a Yamaha tech, worked quite a number of times for Mr C. Corea,
either at the North Sea Jazz Festival or at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam.
I think that he is a really great pianist and he is very cordial towards
piano technicians.
I never had any trouble, because I made sure beforehand, that the CFIIIS had
been there at least a day in advance and, indeed, that I could do my work
under "normal" condidtions.

elevated greetings

Amsterdam
Antares



>Richard,
>
>If I may say so... You take a piano pounder like Corea and add a brand new, 
>strings not settled and stretched Yamaha CFIIIS and an outdoor concert and 
>you wind up with problems.  No piano can take all the variables until the 
>strings settle and one tuner tunes the piano over a period of time.  I could 
>have had a better experience with Chick if I would have had more than just a 
>couple of twenty minute sessions to tune it outdoors in the wind and noise.  
>Yamaha in America has Concert grand's for their Concert artist stationed in 
>most major cities, as do other major piano companies.  So they don't need to 
>send the piano for specific concerts.  They also have tuners that they are 
>comfortable with all over as well.  When Yamaha's C n A department opened 
>many years ago they would send a Japanese tuner with Andre Watts to court him 
>and make sure everything was fine.  I don't believe they do this any more.  I 
>got some great advice from LeRoy Edwards a week ago.  He said he wants the 
>piano to be at concert temp for a day and at least two hours of silence.  If 
>for any reason (sound and lighting people) the place is not quiet he politely 
>gets up and leaves.  He lets the promoter know this ahead of time.  That way 
>his reputation is in tact and he does not worry about the piano being stable. 
> I have adopted his policy after long conversations with him about this at 
>dinner.  Does any one else have special rules you live by in these situations?
>
>Ed Tomlinson
>Vancouver, WA
><< Grin... This is some kind of a promotion tour in Europe Ed. The Yamaha
> CFIII follows him around wherever he goes and Yamaha is paying for it.
> They insure that the nearest Yamaha certified tech is on the job. That's
> the word from Gothenburg anyway.
> 
> The concert was grand, but the piano unfortunately didn't hold tuning
> through the first set. The story is interesting so I will quickly write
> it down. The Yamaha tech was in town from Monday to Wednesday to prep
> and tune the piano and then he left. Corea's contract specifies a tech on
> hand during each concert. The local Yamaha dealer is also a tech and
> decided to take the actual tuning
> job, I wasn't informed and the jazz club was quick to apologize last
> night. This fellow was a bit over confident and was not present under the
> concert. To bad for him really. He's a nice fellow and a good tech
> really, but he is not a popular fellow in certain circles today.
> 
> Anyway Corea insisted on the piano being touched up during the break.
> 700 loud talkers in a small hall. hmmm.. I was called to do the job and
> I warned him that with all the noise it was not going to be easy to
> guarantee good results. He insisted anyway and was really nice about it
> all. So I got driven home to get my tools, sat down to tune and was
> amazed at how bad the unisons were. Half of the tenor and treble section
> was really knocked out badly, some up to a couple beats a second. So it
> was easy enough to make a big improvement. Checked the octaves with
> double octave thirds, tenths and thirds real quickly after cleaning the
> unisons, and they were OK enough. The piano held fine through the second
> set.
> 
> There was very little lighting on stage, not much warmth so climate
> shouldn't really have been a problem. Seeing how the octaves were as
> close as they were and just unisons banged out, I'd have to conclude the
> tuner just didn't get his unisons set well enough. He had been there for
> 4 hours earlier in the day. I suppose he got a bit stressed out,
> thinking of how big a star Corea is, etc.
> 
> Personally, I have tuned for Corea Concerts 5 times through the years
> and have never been called on stage. In fact in 18 years at tuning for
> Molde Int. Jazz festival and for Bergen Natt Jazz I have not experienced
> one single complaint. And we have had folks from Jarrett to Pullan to
> Tanja Maria to Tyner banging away.
> 
> Anyway ... this dealer tech is a pretty good friend of mine, though I am not
> sure why he horned in on this job. I expect an interesting day today as
> the jazz club called him late last night to let him know what was going
> on.
> 
> Richard Brekne
> I.C.P.T.G.  N.P.T.F.
> Bergen, Norway >>
>


antares@euronet.nl