… when a piano settles fully into its environment and meets all the expectations of the builder and the owner. This is what happened yesterday when Wayne came down and spent some nine hours or so (including a very nice lunch at a local Thai restaurant) tuning and revoicing the piano.
The tuning was very close to being spot on. Considering the last time the piano was tuned was in May last year, over eight months ago, this is quite a remarkable achievement. Most of the work went into adjusting the hammers and the action and as far as possible working on the grooves on the hammers to get an optimum tone over the whole eight octave range. This had the effect as well of lightening the action slightly, which is something I’ve been keen on for a while now.
So we now have a situation where the piano is totally at home in its environment and is extraordinarily stable both pitch-wise and action-wise. The piano is still in an absolutely pristine condition, and this is not only due to the inherent quality of the piano but also of course to Wayne’s skill in keeping it that way. I must admit that quite a bit of the time I didn’t really know what he was doing but there is no doubt as to the effectiveness of all of that given the way the piano is now sounding.
So now the way is clear for further progress both from the performance and recording perspectives. I’m in the preliminary stages of organising another fundraising concert probably at the beginning of April, and my programme for that is pretty much worked out at this stage.