Bunnies Need Snow

The piano tuner is coming here this morning. He tuned the baby grand at the church on Friday and today is my piano’s turn. I try to get both tuned in the fall. Mine gets very screechy at this time of year. It has a bright sound to begin with—that’s part of the reason I bought that particular model—but the line between “bright” and “screechy” is rather thin. (I am probably the only one who notices, though.) Both pianos have humidifiers on them because our relative humidity averages around 25%.

This guy does a good job, but he’s not Frank. Frank tuned both pianos for years. When he came to my house, he would bring recordings of low brass ensembles with him. Frank played euphonium and he knew I played the trombone. After he tuned the piano, I would make a pot of tea and we would sit and listen to music and visit.

Piano tuning is an art, not a science. I can’t explain it well, but it’s more than a matter of tuning each note to a specific frequency. (Read the book Temperament: How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization if you want to know more, then read the book Grand Obsession.) My high school friend Robert, who lives in Tennessee now, is the most musically-knowledgeable person I know. He is a retired low brass instructor for the Akron Bluecoats drum corps. He did a podcast episode with them last year on intonation. After listening to Robert talk about low brass intonation, I understood why Frank did such a great job when he tuned my piano. Frank was able to tweak the tuning to produce a much richer, fuller sound, and part of that had to due with the fact that he was a low brass instrumentalist. My current piano tuner isn’t a musician.

Frank died of leukemia several years ago. I miss him and I miss how my piano used to sound after he tuned it.

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I stayed after church yesterday to help set up for our gift festival later this week, then came home and canned 19 pints of white beans. Beans aren’t a labor-intensive canning project. They soak overnight and then I put them into jars, load the canner, and run it for 90 minutes. A five-pound bag of beans makes 19 pints and my canner holds 19 pints, so it works out nicely.

I know, Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest, but there is no such thing for church pianists. I had already spent half my day working. And I was trying to keep myself awake. I hate changing the clocks. It’s a stupid practice and I wish we could eliminate it.

The bunny is now completely white:

The bunny should hope it snows (again) soon so it has some camouflage.

I am supposed to have a class at the store in town on Wednesday but I need to find out if anyone has signed up. I also have to check with the store in Missoula to see if I have students for next week’s class. I am supposed to teach a class in Spokane at the end of next week, but that class never made it to the store website. I need to contact the owner. It is possible that the class filled up without any advertising because the store is so small that there is only room for a few students. It is also possible that it slipped through the cracks.

This is a busy week. I’ll be working at the gift festival for a few hours each day. If I have classes, next week will also be a busy week, but the week after that is Thanksgiving and my birthday and I have some fun activities planned.