Life or Death Piano Tuning

A few days ago we held our Spring Concert at Taft High School. In view of the economic crisis, I decided to save the Los Angeles Unified School District a little money by not getting our piano tuned before the concert. Besides, the piano was accompanying the choir in only one selection, and it had been tuned about six months ago. We'd live.

What I had forgotten, however, was that the piano had a string replaced at the last tuning, and that now it would be very flat. When I tried out the piano the morning of the concert, my mistake became obvious. The D below middle C was excruciatingly painful. I could probably play around the note if I had to, but, piano not being my main instrument, it would be bit dicey.

So, I gave the LAUSD instrumental repair division a call.

"Hi, my name is Tom..."

"Number," the voice on the phone had the monotone quality of someone who had spent far too much time in a cubicle.

"I'm sorry, what was that?"

"Your location code number."

"8880. I was ...."

"Your name?"

"Tom Pease. I'm calling about ..."

"Spell last name."

"P-E-A-S-E."

"Reason for the call?" I could now visualize the form in front of her.

"I need a piano tuned. You see I've got ..."

"When do you need it tuned by?"

"Tonight."

There was a pause.

"Tonight?" She finally blurted with a bit of surprise in her voice. I guess there wasn't a checkoff box on her form for "tonight."

"Yes. You see it's only one string that needs to be tuned, and our concert is tonight."

"We can only get it tuned that quickly if it's an emergency," she replied, back to her drone tone.

"Well, yes it is. The concert is tonight."

"It can only be an emergency if it is a matter of life or death."

Now I paused. "Life or death?" My first reaction was to come up with a scenario that would fit that criteria.

"My pianist is very sensitive and will kill himself if the piano is not perfectly tuned."

"An out of tune piano can trigger a fatal epileptic attack in one of my singers."

"Irate audience members will attack me with machetes and Samurai swords if they hear just one out of tune note."

It seemed impossible, but was there in fact a check box next to piano tuning that said, "life or death emergency?" Had it ever been checked?

After a little discussion, we settled on the term "urgent," which meant that it should be tuned sometime in the next 48 hours. With a little luck, I might get it tuned in time for the show.

Tuned pianos, music, art ... these are not life or death situations. That was tragically clear to me as just a few days before the concert a Taft student was killed in an auto accident on the way to the prom.

But music, art, and perhaps even tuned pianos are life and death situations. We use music to celebrate life, be it "Happy Birthday" sung simultaneously in a variety of keys, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony to mark the reunification of Germany, or the "Wedding March" from Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream played as the bride makes her way to the alter. In death we comfort ourselves with quiet soothing music or contemplate the fate of our soul in a requiem.

Among all else that music is, it is a communal marker of life and death.

The piano tuner showed up that afternoon. The string was tuned; the concert went extremely well; no one died. And, I would like to hope, that in some small way, lives were marked.