In tune

 

I had been meaning to do this for ages. But finally it got high enough in my to-do list to get organised - tune the piano. Our previous piano tuner retired a while back so I needed to find another one. After a bit of a search I contacted and then booked Peter Tryon to come and tune the piano this morning. He arrived on time at 9:30 as scheduled. He asked how old the piano was. It is a Yamaha U1, bought second hand when we moved to Bury St. Edmunds in 1997.  I guessed it was built about 1980 - Peter said it might be 1970s vintage and said I could look up the serial number to find out. Opening the lid, the serial number is on the sound board...

I looked it up...

It is 56 years old! Peter was impressed. The original Japan-made U-series pianos are the best, he said.

It is quite a while since it had been tuned but was barely off concert pitch and after an hour or so Peter had it sounding better than it had for some time. As you get with a car service, Peter pointed out some potential work to be done in future... Some of the hammers have a bit of play in them, and it will cost about £600 to get the action refurbished and top pianos should be restrung every 30 years or so, which costs about £3000. Hmm. I think we'll live with what we have for now! Thank-you Peter.See you again in six months or so.

So this afternoon I got out some music and tried it out...  This Brahms waltz is an old favourite.

And I never could play this without mistakes, but it is fun. Liszt's "The Bells of Rome" is a good test of a piano. It start quietly and easily enough....

and leads to some quiet passages using the top registers of the piano before spreading out and reaching the bottom note of the piano...

...and then goes berserk....

Great fun. I only wish I could play it properly!