Tuners who don't play

[Barb Barasa]

>  I don't know if playing makes a tuner a happier tuner, but I do know that
>teaching a player to tune just enough to smooth out unisons, and temperament
>basics, usually makes for a very unhappy player. When this person starts
>listening to the individual notes of his music rather than the music itself
>they have lost something of their ability to enjoy their own music.  How
>about some of the 'players' commenting on this ?
>Jim Bryant (FL)

I imagine if someone knew enough to know how a piano SHOULD sound when it's
in tune, and they didn't know how to get it to sound that way, it WOULD be
distracting to play on an out of tune piano.  I know, because I remember
being in that situation!  :-)

I would never teach anyone to "tune" unless they were willing to really
learn to TUNE.  When my customers tell me they have thought about learning
to tune (usually, I suspect, to save the $$ they pay to have their own piano
tuned) I tell them that I am a really good teacher (which I am), and that I
would be happy to arrange some time to start teaching them, but they have to
understand that it takes about as long to learn to tune a piano well as it
takes to learn to play an instrument.  Then I remind them of all the years
at the beginning of their music lessons -- learning which note on the music
is which key, which finger to use, counting, all the hours of scales and
arpeggios, until finally, one day, as if by magic, they could play the
piano!  And it's just like that with piano tuning ... there is a LOT of
frustration and mental anguish and rote learning before it just "happens"
and it is easy.  And unless they are willing to tune hundreds of pianos,
they will never learn how to tune.

So far, no one has ever brought it up a second time.

Barb Barasa
Ashland, OR

PS -- I don't play professionally or give music lessons, just play for my
own enjoyment.  This is almost never for two reasons: one, I don't have
time, and two, when my piano is not pretty well in tune, it is painful for
me to play it! (So that's the other down side of being a tuner.)  It's not
that I listen to every note.  It's just that I can tell immediately that
it's out of tune.


"When nothing is sure,
   Everything is possible."