I arrive at the Cathedral of Saint Andrews in Grand Rapids, MI at 8:30 in the morning. It's a gorgeous Monday morning in May. I see Anthony Leary the Sexton of the church taking out trash bags across the street and people are walking and driving all around me. There's a man in front of the church who has a minivan that won't start and is getting some help from a friend in an old rusty pickup truck. The church is a beautiful structure, and I am reminded once again that this building seems a little out of place in this part of town that is just a bit sketchy. The Catholic high school is right next door, and one time when I was walking across from the school to the church a drug dealer approached me and tried to sell me something.
It is a part of town that has some interesting characters hanging around, and I always expect something unusual. But, I arrive at the front door unmolested and walk into the vestibule and then on into the cavernous cathedral where my every step echoes off the thirty-to forty-foot-high ceilings. I finish my journey at the front of the church where the immense 9 foot 6 inch Bösendorfer Imperial Concert grand piano resides. I take the cover off, throw it on top of the pipe organ and proceed to open the massive lid and hastily maneuver the lid prop in position. It is becoming more and more difficult to get that lid up in the air and one of these times I will need to enlist Devon the large security guard to help me lift it.
Next, I install the temperament strip in between the strings of the middle section of the piano and begin tuning by setting the A above middle C to an A440 tuning fork. I do not use a tuning machine and after these forty years of doing it by ear, it is far too late to learn any other way. Besides, my original tutor, Royal, hated those things. I know plenty of guys who do a great job with an electronic tuning instrument, but I’ll go out on a limb and encourage guys to strictly tune aurally for a few months and find the joy in it.
This Bösendorfer 290 is a truly glorious instrument but surprisingly not my favorite instrument as far the tone it produces. However, it is definitely a most impressive instrument regarding the plate design and appearance, the nine extra keys in the bass, the construction of the soundboard and bridges, and just the overwhelming bigness of everything. The workmen at the Bösendorfer factory in Vienna obviously took great pride in crafting this beauty.
There are times when I am tuning this piano that people come into the sanctuary whom I instinctively sense do not belong there. On one such occasion a man entered the church, stepped up on the platform and began checking out the large high back chairs reserved for the bishops and priests. After inspecting each one, he finally chose the largest one in the middle to sit in which is strictly for the head priest of the church. I knew he should not be sitting there but hey, I am just the piano tuner, not the large high-backed chair police.
Devon, a security guard at the Cathedral is one of the high-backed chair police. When he walked in and saw the man sitting in the priest's chair he was understandably upset at this intruder’s disrespect of the chair and the office. I kept tuning but looked over at the scene unfolding and witnessed the man loudly protest that he was a member there and had the right to be in the cathedral. Devon can be intimidating when needed and sternly told this man that he may be a member but had no right to be in that chair and had to leave immediately. The man threatened Devon with legal action who only repeated to the man that he needed to leave NOW.
The man left.
Just another interesting day of my life at the cathedral when I'm tuning the Bösendorfer.
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