Tuning for Tomatoes

[Greg Newell]

Leo,
    What a terrific story! Perhaps other tuners don't have the time for
encounters like this but when the opportunity presents itself to me I make the
time. Little wonder why people develop emotional attachments to the family piano,
huh? Not only are you richer for the evening but also richer for life!
Greg Newell

LHSBAND440@AOL.COM wrote:

> Tonight I had the rare occasion to tune for a wonderfully elderly couple.
> They had a Steinway and Sons that there daughter had played for years and
> since had moved out of the house and the piano hadn't been tuned since 1984.
> Even though it was in a finished basement the instrument was only 14 cents
> flat on an average.  I spent time learning about tuning and the art of being
> human.  As the elderly gentlemen stood over me and watched everything I did,
> his wife continually offered me and coke and a sandwich.  I ended up
> journeying away from the piano for five minutes to look at pictures when
> their daughter won piano competitions practicing on this instrument and for
> an instant there lives were brought back to those happy days when music
> filled their house.  I was asked to do this tuning because they are selling
> the piano since their daughter has moved on and has no interest in playing
> the piano.  As I returned to the piano these two wonderful people just
> continued to live those years over again as I played the piano to check
> intervals and beat rates.  Finally, I put the magnetic pickup on the
> accu-tuner and let them talk and relive to their hearts delight.  When It
> came time for me to leave the gentlemen took back his check and then came
> back with another that was 20% more than what a normally charge.  As I took
> the check his wife came back with a bag full of tomatoes.  She said that
> these were the best from her garden and she wanted me to take them home to my
> family since I had spent almost 3 hours with them tuning their piano rather
> than being home with my family.  As I drove home I thought that his night was
> just the kind of night that they needed and so did I.  It had very little to
> do with beat rates, unisons, or the SAT.  But it had everything to do with
> how music can draw people together who have never met before and who have a
> common interest, desire or just memories of times gone bye.  Now I don't tune
> for a living but rather for the fun of it, so I can do this.  Those of you
> who tune for a living, I understand that this is probably something that you
> can't do.  I kept the tomatoes but the check I put in an envelope and sent it
> back with a letter saying that they were the winners of the free monthly
> tuning (which no such thing exists).  Am I richer for the evening? .......
> More than I have felt in a long time.
>
> Leonard (Leo) H. Silverman
> Watertown, NY