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Topic: How often does concert pianist tune their pianos?  (Read 3492 times)

Offline johnmar78

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How often does concert pianist tune their pianos?
on: January 10, 2013, 02:32:28 AM
Hi folks, just doing a survey, can some professional/concert pianist tell us how often do you tune your piano? eg 3 times a year? once a week during concert period? Thanks

Offline j_menz

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Re: How often does concert pianist tune their pianos?
Reply #1 on: January 10, 2013, 03:24:04 AM
Concert pianists spend quite a bit of time on the road, so "their" piano for much of that time is whatever they can manage to get hold of.  In days of yore (and possibly still) some travelled with their own tech; otherwise the larger halls have a tech in residence to tune /voice the piano to the performeres requirements.  You might find this insightful (and rather amusing):

https://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/stephenhough/100066407/an-obsession-and-a-viscous-circle/
"What the world needs is more geniuses with humility. There are so few of us left" -- Oscar Levant

Offline outin

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Re: How often does concert pianist tune their pianos?
Reply #2 on: January 10, 2013, 03:54:55 AM
^ How appropriate for you to be the one to answer this one ;D

Offline rachmaninoff_forever

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Re: How often does concert pianist tune their pianos?
Reply #3 on: January 10, 2013, 03:58:16 AM
Of course Menz is the first person to answer this...
Live large, die large.  Leave a giant coffin.

Offline hfmadopter

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Re: How often does concert pianist tune their pianos?
Reply #4 on: January 10, 2013, 08:31:22 PM
I don't know about other concert pianists or how they operate these days but Horowitz took both his piano and tech with him. You can find Youtube videos of one such excursion where they interview his Tech stage side. They moved the piano from his livingroom in NY and transported it to Europe, the tech did a pre install tuning then they hoisted the piano on stage where he tuned it again. I imagine in most cases if it's a two day show it gets tuned before each show for anyone pro level. Horowitz only played his own Steinway tuned by his own tech, voiced to his own liking.

Locally we had ourselves a star pianists named Ken Manzer who did some classical and Chopinesque pop make overs in his own club. I can remember him during a break touching up the strings himself. That's when I got the idea, if he can do that so can I between tunings in my own livingroom ( forget the entertaining part, he was in another league) and so it began that I learned to tune my piano, FWIW.
Depressing the pedal on an out of tune acoustic piano and playing does not result in tonal color control or add interest, it's called obnoxious.

Offline johnmar78

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Re: How often does concert pianist tune their pianos?
Reply #5 on: January 11, 2013, 02:42:04 AM
thansk guys, Hfma, yes tuning your own paino is a very handy indeed. This is waht I expect fro Horiwize=, at real time tuning at the events.  ;). I suppose, shopuld be tuned jsut before the concert.
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