Vartan Manoogian<\/a>, long time master teacher of violin at the University of Wisconsin, who passed away much too early last summer. Vartan had a certain genius for winding people up, but I couldn\u2019t imagine what he\u2019d done to get Tim\u2019s knickers in a twist.<\/p>\n\u201cYou know, he bought this beautiful piano last year,\u201d Tim told me breathlessly, as if relaying the back story to news of a recent crime.<\/p>\n
\u201cEr, I hadn\u2019t heard, but that\u2019s great.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201dNo! It\u2019s not great. The man decided to tune it himself! Can you believe that!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh\u2026\u201d was all I could think to say. Vartan did have rather amazing ears. And nerve.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe can\u2019t do that,” Time excalimed. “He can\u2019t just start tuning\u00a0a piano!\u201d<\/p>\n
It is a truism that string players think they know more about tuning than piano tuners, and\u00a0that piano tuners think string players can’t play in tune. Tim clearly thought most piano tuners, with their half-baked, amateurish, unquestioning loyalty to\u00a0equal temperament, were at best hacks, but at least they were piano tuners.<\/p>\n
\u201cEr, no\u2026 of course not\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGood.\u201d<\/p>\n
I felt like the lesson was over and I should get up and leave, only it was my house.<\/p>\n
\u201cWill he have… messed it up?\u201d I asked in a desperate attempt to fill what was beginning to seem like a long silence.<\/p>\n
Tim just looked at me. Had I not been listening?<\/p>\n
I started gently, \u201cEr\u2026 after all, didn\u2019t you say that back in the day, guys like Brahms and Schubert tuned their pianos?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, but those were composers. Composers! And those were different pianos. Just think what he\u2019s done to that poor piano. It was such a beautiful instrument\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, if he\u2019s messed it up, can\u2019t someone just go in and re-tune it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201dHe\u2019d be lucky to find someone who would touch it after it\u2019s been manhandled like that\u201d<\/p>\n
It was becoming clear to me- somehow, Vartan\u2019s actions had deflowered the piano. It’s virgin strings had been pulled by unclean hands. The instrument would now sit in his living room, untouchable, as if it wore a scarlet letter \u201cV\u201d\u2026..<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe it sounds okay? I mean, er, he is a great musician\u201d<\/p>\n
I might have well told him I\u2019d sold his daughter to a shipload of Vladivostokian smugglers from the look he gave me.<\/p>\n
Well, of course, I had to ask Manoogian for his side of the story when I next saw him.<\/p>\n
\u201cHey- I hear you dared to tune your own piano.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes\u201d he said with his uniquely mischievous half-smile. \u201cI kept getting it worked on and it never sounded in tune, so I did it myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201dHow\u2019s it sound?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201dIt sounds good.\u201d He was smiling broadly.<\/p>\n
Now, I\u2019ll never know if he was telling the truth. Perhaps he\u2019d flown in a tuner from the mountains of Tibet who hadn\u2019t heard of the scandal and tried to blame the tuning job on a bunch of roving criminals who had broken into his house and attempted to tune the piano using the modified-Amenian-tone system\u2026.<\/p>\n
We got a new (old)) piano not long ago, and after a few months I organized our first tuning. The chap worked on it while I was out, so I returned that evening and sat down to play a chord. Ab would be a nice one to start with.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t start complaining,\u201d cautioned Sue from the next room.<\/p>\n
But those thirds\u2026. Surely we can do better than that. I tried G major- same as Ab!\u00a0They sound so messy, so, er\u2026. hmmm\u2026.dirty.<\/p>\n
I thought for a moment- I could just get in there\u00a0 for an afternoon. It\u2019s just an upright. And if I messed it up, I could just get it re-tuned.<\/p>\n
And then I remembered Tim\u2019s withering gaze, and thought that I might end up forever on some list somewhere, a list that meant I could never get a piano tuned again, and probably would have to go through extra security every time I flew for the rest of my life,\u00a0and I decided to stop worrying and learn to love those blurry, dirty\u00a0thirds.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n