Old hands

Norman has been tuning pianos for over 40 years. Those hands must have seen a lot of pianos.

He was telling me about his life as a piano tuner, and said when he was an apprentice he had to wear a suit and trilby hat. Now he always comes in a suit, he has stopped the trilby.

Here he is re-seating the pegs that are used to adjust the strings using a special tool, and a hammer. After he tunes the strings starting with a tuning fork.

I asked him about the difference between tuning the very best piano and a cheap one. He said that Steinway are the best, the engineering is so good that tuning is easy. Each tiny change is immediately audible. Steinway is made in Hamburg originally then following political persecution in Germany after losing an election, the family set up business in New York in the 1853's. Fascinating