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Why is it important for a piano to be in tune?
Making music, at its best, is more than self-amusement or self-comfort, more than entertaining or impressing others, and more than cultivating one’s pontential for intellectual and cultural achievement. Music making at its best is an attuning of the mind and of the heart to beauty. It is a cultivating of the best instincts of the soul, an exploring of the awe-inspiring possibilities inherent in the created order, a tracing of the fingerprints of the One who raised up the mountains and set the stars in place.
It does not take the sophistication of adulthood to engage in music making of this kind. I have seen young children sitting at a piano exploring music of simple beauty with astonishment and delight.
Pianos are a marvelous achievement of human ingenuity and craftsmanship, and when they are in such a condition that they do what they are meant to do, they invite and welcome the player into the gladness of music making.
But when pianos are neglected, they slip out of tune. They do not merely become neutral in motivating the player, they interfere with the delight of music making. And even when the player becomes accustomed to the discordant sound, the delight is not the same, and the interference eats away at the enthusiasm of the enterprise.
And that is why it is important for a piano to be in tune.
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