I enjoyed my summer morning tremendously.  It was a well-kept 1980 Baldwin R, which tuned up nicely. But what made it so special were the conversations with Jacob. This is Jacob’s practice piano.  A former Full Chord Press student of mine, a graduate from TMP only a few weeks, and headed to KU in the fall to major in music education.  He has prepared himself in voice, violin, and piano.  I know he is going to make a fantastic teacher and will have a positive influence on many young people!! I am very proud. 

Jacob explained that when he pressed the sostenuto pedal E6 would play E6 and F6 at the same time.  So, I took the piano action out and realigned the E6 hammer by moving the E6 flange to the left a bit. After tweaking that a bit, taking the action in and out and testing the note, looking at the mating of the hammer to the string, the piano was ready for tuning or was it? I told Jacob the piano was pretty dirty and while we had the action out, if he was willing to help, we would clean it together. This is what made the tuning so special. 
Jacob was so very inquisitive about the workings of the piano. Sharing in the learning process with students is most enjoyable to me. That is what motivates me as a teacher.  The best times are outside the classroom – like this experience. Not planned. No homework. No grades. Just a student, passionate about music, and curious about the instrument he had played on for years. 

With the piano back together I proceeded to tune the piano.  Jacob continued to work on cleaning the plate and he didn’t seem to mind the banging underneath the lid as I tuned…I hope his ears survived. 
The piano was only a few cents flat. I still did a pitch raise and did a second pass to fine tune. Very pleased with the tuning. This Baldwin has such a rich tone!! I always look forward to tuning it. 
I tuned the piano to the Bremmer Equal Beating Victorian Temperment III (EBVT-III).  I really like this temperment (I tune all my school pianos to this temperment) for its pure 5ths and flavor.  It just sounds so right! Click this link for a nice explanation of the Bremmer EVBT-III.
An added plus was the nice view of the Kansas landscape from the piano bench (the picture to the right). 
It was so nice to have Jacob around. I couldn’t resist asking him to take the Baldwin R for a test run.