Vanstein Copyright

Chapter 1 – The Tuner and the Pianist

“Well, that’s the way it is. Please take care of the rest.”

The elderly master, his sleepy eyes twinkling, entrusted the keys to Adonis, a young piano tuner, and opened the heavy door.

Tuning was a noisy job. Adonis was glad to be able to work without the extra attention of his employer, who sleeps during the day and being awake at night.

After escorting the master up the stairs to the entrance of the store, he returned to the basement and firmly shut the iron door for soundproofing. Adonis once more glanced around the piano bar “Crazy Louis”.

Illuminated by the dim steam lamps, the bar consisted of a few tables with chairs perched upside down, an old yet clean counter bar, and a vintage grand piano silently positioned on the stage in the center of the bar. From the ceiling, a high-intensity spotlight cast a light on the glossy varnish on the wood grain and the piano’s refined presence.

Upon approaching the grand piano, the young piano tuner opened the top panel and keyboard lid. Despite the absence of an aged impression on the exterior, the appearance of the wood inside and the condition of the keyboard suggested that the piano had been manufactured more than fifty years ago. One could feel the taste of a vintage piano that was made by craftsmen in the old days with great care.

Even when observing the piano from corner to corner, there were almost no insect bites, stains, dust, or dirt, and it was in extremely fine condition. The interior of the piano must have been cleaned on a regular basis. However, it was still too early to be at ease. Without disassembling the instrument, there might be many problems that remain unidentified.

Adonis efficiently removed the keyboard cover, music stand, and other parts that would interfere with the work, and immediately set to work.

Even though it may be called piano tuning, tuning the sound by adjusting the tuning pins of the strings is only one step of the whole process. When considered from the perspective of piano maintenance, rather than piano tuning, the necessary processes can be divided into six categories. In other words, they are cleaning, keyboard adjustment, hammer action adjustment, damper adjustment, and tuning and sound adjustment.

If all these processes were to be performed thoroughly, it would require a minimum of two days. Consequently, depending on the client’s needs and the condition of the piano, it is necessary to make a certain number of choices. In this case, the essential items would be internal cleaning, keyboard adjustment, tuning, and if there would be additional time, sound tuning would be carried out. This alone would be just in time for the opening hours of “Crazy Louis”.

“Let’s see…”

With an estimate of the work process established in his mind, Adonis rolled up his shirtsleeves and meticulously pulled out the keyboard and action mechanism.

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It was already sixteen o’clock in the morning for the beginning of the day. Adonis was in the final stage of sound adjustment.

Cleaning the parts consumed considerably more time than expected, and the keys were beginning to rattle due to deterioration over time, necessitating extensive work. However, no major deviations were found in the tuning, and thus the work time was significantly recovered. Regardless of how carefully the tuning adjustment was carried out, it would still be ready by 19:00, the opening time for business.

Sound adjustment refers to the process of restoring the elasticity of the felt hammers that strike the strings.

In a piano, the hammers, operated in conjunction with the keyboard keys, strike the strings allocated to the corresponding keyboard keys to produce sound. These hammers are made of felt, which naturally hardens over time. When the felt is hard, the sound becomes harder, so a tool called a picker is used to pierce the hammer with a needle to create an appropriate gap and restore its elasticity. This is how sound adjustment is conducted.

Once a hard sound is discovered, the keyboard is pulled out and the picker is inserted into the hammer. The key is put back, and if necessary, it is pulled out again, followed by the insertion of the picker again.

Although it was a tedious process, Adonis was most fond of the tuning of the piano. To perceive hard tones, one must be able to hear the difference with sensitivity alone, devoid of any tangential thoughts.

That is to say, his head would be in a state of meditation, therefore, the process is both relaxing and stress-relieving.

In this state of immersion, he tapped the keys one at a time, seeking out the hard tones. Upon finding it, he pulls out the keyboard, sticks the picker in, and puts it back in again. When he was going through the series of movements smoothly, an unexpected sound emerged.

“Wa!!”

“Uwah!?”

Adonis was involuntarily startled by a loud voice coming from behind him. He had not even perceived any sign of someone approaching. When he turned around, there was a lovely girl with long blonde hair.

While holding a paper bag full of vegetables and fruits, she rolled her big sky-blue eyes at Adonis’ astonishment, and was conversely shocked. She was slightly younger than Adonis, approximately seventeen years old.

As the girl placed the paper bag on the table nearby, she apologized to Adonis.

“I’m sorry I startled you. I tried to call out to you many times, but you didn’t seem to hear me at all.”

Like a naughty child, she brought her hands together in front of her chin and pressed the tips of them against her pale cherry-red lips. Adonis’ heart was still pounding.

“Are you tuning the piano?”

“It’s my fault as well… I failed to notice you. As you can tell… I’m Adonis, a piano tuner.”

“I’m Angela, the pianist who plays the piano here. Wow, I’ve never seen this piano tuned before.”

Leaning over the shoulder of Adonis, who was seated in the piano chair, Angela peered into the interior of the piano, which she normally never would have a glimpse. When Adonis caught the scent of the girl approaching from the front, he coughed in lieu of a warning. The girl, perhaps noticing, quickly backed away.

“I was playing this piano yesterday, but I didn’t notice anything out of place with the sound. Was it that bad?”

“Oh, yeah. Well then.”

Adonis, trying to remain nonchalant, returned the keyboard to its place for a simple play.

“Try playing it for a while.”

When Angela looked at the bare keys, which had not yet been worked on, her face revealed a look of curiosity that swelled up.

“Leave it to me.”

The girl sat down on the chair. Stretching out her hands, she began to play casually.

That song was an original, bass-based piece that Adonis had never heard before.

With her long platinum blonde hair gently swaying, Angela expressed a solemn resonance with a tender, effortless touch. As she performed, her innocent appearance from earlier disappeared, and a maternal love filled with receptivity could be felt. While bearing a soft smile, the melody, emotionally elaborated, filled the entire piano bar.

Sitting at a table shallowly, Adonis gazed at the back of the young girl as she played. The sound of the piano brought back distant memories for him, and he couldn’t help but feel a sense of déjà vu with her swaying blonde hair.

Although the piece may not have been technically challenging, the performance was an ample glimpse of her abilities as a pianist.

After Angela quietly concluded the piece, she turned around briskly to Adonis’ modest applause.