[pianotech] Why bother to tune a Piano?

[Floyd Gadd]

List,

I am sending out a newsletter from time to time to a mailing list of
schools, churches and piano teachers. (Archive is at
http://tuning.floydgadd.com/html/newsletters.html)  I've just finished
composing my August edition.  In my next issue I would like to delve into
the question of why it is desirable and important to tune a piano.

In this case, I'm not exploring reasons that benefit the longevity of the
piano itself.  I'm looking for particularly apt statements that speak to
such things as the capacity of the human spirit for beauty, the benefits of
having a well trained ear, and so forth.

Maybe the core question I'm really after is this:  Why bother to attune
ourselves to beauty?

I think we live in an age where we have largely lost the capacity to talk
about beauty.  So much of the music and entertainment industry is driven by
a pragmatic approach to success, where success is defined in terms of money,
fame, power (political and otherwise) and self actualization.  And much
current thinking is driven by a cultural relativism the essentially pushes
to deny any real possibility that beauty actually exists.

I find that at times I need to deliberately read and think in this area just
to keep my courage up.  Some particularly helpful books for me (even if they
don't tackle the topic head-on) have been:
	C. S. Lewis - An Experiment in Criticism
			- The Abolition of Man
	Ken Meyers  - All God's Children and Blue Suede Shoes
	Jason Harms - The Affections of the Heart in Art
	Abraham Kaplan - The Aesthetics of the Popular Arts (in The journal of
Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Spring 1966)

What have you read that has particularly nourished your courage to pursue
and promote beauty in a world where so many parents of piano students (and
even some teachers) seem to have the attitude of "why bother?"  (In our
case, why bother to tune a piano?)

Or maybe you've got some things just burning in your soul and you're ready
for a soapbox.  Here's your chance.  Some of us are listening.

Floyd Gadd
Manitoba Chapter