The piano

Piano tuner Grenville Wilkinson tuning up ‘ol’ McPhail’, the 1915 vintage upright in Hillier Hall that has been the star of the ball for many a century. Players welcome.

a…A…A …the music note rings constant throughout the empty hall. Traffic hurries beyond the window. Grenville Wilkinson stands at the piano hitting one note over and over with the front panel now open, I watch as the felted piano hammer lands amongst the weft of strings that grow from the belly of the thing. Grenville inserts something between strings that resembles a wedge on a shish kabob stick. “That mutes one string from another,” he says. His fingers hit one white key at a time while he uses a long-handled sprocket wrench affair to adjust seemingly a cosmos of tuning pins. Lower…Bbb…ccC…D …..DDDD is like the bong from the Peace Tower.

“The wooden pin-block is usually four to five laminations of maple,” Grenville tells me. “The pins go into it by about two inches and that’s the deciding factor on whether you can keep an older piano going,” he says. “Humidity, not temperature, is the culprit with swelling and contraction. Once that pin-block is rotten or damaged the pins no longer hold tuning.”

Grenville talks to me as he works. “Some pianos are difficult to tune…every one is different like a car or old truck. Is it rusted or is it one that has new bolts? How the pin turns, how it feels, whether or not it goes back to where it’s supposed to be.” (Sure hope they go back. ) “When the hole gets too large there is not much you can do about it. With a grand piano you can replace the pin-block…with these uprights it’s built right in.”

My knuckles are tight as if I’m awaiting the verdict from the mechanic. Yet this is no car or truck. This is a piano that belongs to you and me. You know the hippo size upright that moved into Hillier Hall decades ago and never left? Yes that one, made by the A.M. McPhail Piano Company established in 1857, serial number 56956 with the ‘Patent Action Steel Compensation Rods Reinforced Metal Plate’; Remember? The company was awarded more than 50 gold medals and diplomas! Made on Honour, Sold on Merit; Says so plain as day in embossed letters and shiny decals plastered all over the pin block. But how it found its way from its birthplace on Washington Street in Boston to the banks of Slab Creek is a mystery. All I know is the piano has been sulking in a corner waiting for someone to tinkle its ivories.

“Some pianos sound better than others just by the dimensions, known as “scaling”…the string length, diameter and termination point. The other major difference is due to quality of individual components. Hammers, dampers, soundboards and cabinet”, Grenville touts. “This one dates to about 1915.” How can you tell? “It was made shortly after the era where they had open pin blocks. This is a full cast iron plate,” he answers.

It was a few months back when I heard piano McPhail played at the once-a-year service held in the hall in St. Andrew’s Church of Wellington—parish of Kente. The ol’ piano smiled as hymns marched from its sound board. The keyboard player was lively but her back was angled toward the congregation and friend McPhail was stuck to the wall like a fixture. So, shortly after that event we had a huddle— just the piano and I: Ever done that? Not so much talking to a piano but more like deciding that after sitting quietly through a million meetings and events that you would be silent no more! Piano McPhail chose to rise up! With a vote of support from the folks down this way, Grenville, piano tuner extraordinaire voyaged all the way from Cherry Valley, tuning hammer and mute in hand, to come to the aid of McPhail.

“You find the ‘A’ note with a tuning fork or electronic reader,” says Grenville. Does it depend on your ear? “To a certain extent but not as much as people think,” he answers. “It’s a system that you use—many think it is about perfect pitch. It is nothing like that,” he continues. “You need fairly good high end hearing to hear higher frequencies,” as he hits the last high key. “When you are tuning with this hammer you don’t really care what the note is because it is all based around this centre key A. It has a frequency of 440. So first you get your A with a tuning-fork—and then you do your octave and then once you get that you start building up. Using various methods, you are getting every note in tune based on A.” As a drummer in the band I’m not required to know this. “It’s a vibration that you hear. It’s not a note. Can you here a vibrato there?” I think so. “Well that particular vibrato is 7 cycles per second…so that is what you actually learn to do when you tune a piano…learning how to hear 7 cycles per second rather than a note…then up to 7.5 then 8. It goes up like that ‘til you get your octaves all in tune.” I’m impressed. “You can use a computer which measures six to seven notes on a piano because every note is slightly different. It measures those notes and then it computes the perfect spread…and it tells you each note’s perfect value for the centre string.”

By now I have learned that there are 52 white keys, 36 black, seven octaves plus a minor third; there are 88 hammers, 220 strings, three strings per note in mid range…“They’re called unisons—tuning unisons is the most critical part of tuning because if the unisons aren’t right you get that honkytonk sound,” he says as he chords. “Listen to when two out of three are good.” Now this is familiar; honkytonk. “It is critical in how you leave the string to allow the pin to settle into its proper position in the hole…there is so much force on it. If you added up all the pressure on each string there is between 20-30 tons of pressure on that plate.”

What about the patented reinforcing rods I want to know. “It’s unusual, but many piano manufactures had promotion gimmicks to make their product stand out from the crowd. All pianos are exactly the same with a couple of minor differences,” Grenville continues. “This style of piano developed around 1650. Called a pianoforte which means…,” he chords… “You can play different volumes depending on how you hit the keys. Before the pianoforte, the spinets plucked the string and had one volume only.”

By the 1890s the piano had arrived. The architecture changed with design trends – Louis XV, French Revival, Arts and Crafts. The 1920s were the Golden Age of piano building. “Once they got to that point, everything worked so well…they didn’t mess with it,” Grenville says. “A piano made 10 years ago works the same way with pretty well the same parts as this one. You can buy parts for pianos going back to the 1890s.”

Canada had over 200 pianomakers at one time, but most manufacturers, if they survived the Great Depression, went totally out of business by the forties and fifties when trends changed again. “This one…,” Grenville tweaks the piano hammer. “The pins are pretty tight,” he confirms. “They can always be pounded in a bit more to tighten.” I ask about his craft. “I have always been into music…and do a lot of woodworking so when you combine the two? I took a correspondence course for three years and now look after about 200 pianos. There are a lot around, but not a lot being tuned,” he adds. Is there a pet piano on your list? Smiling, he says “I love the Regent Theatre’s Chickering grand…Glen Gould’s personal favourite was a Chickering. Great sound…concert size…tunes really well and holds its tune.”

And so getting back to…I tap McPhail’s piano top. “This is a higher end piano. Better than you normally see. Nice looking inside…the lettering… embossed wording…the decals applied after the gold paint. There has been some work done on it…keep it in tune once a year I’d say,” Grenville ends.

Did ya hear that McPhail? You’re fine. Check up once a year! And he loved the decals! And yes you were marvellous, tuned and polished-up for the fishfry when Katie James came by to play. There you were front and centre amidst the sweet bouquet mix of peonies, good wine and food that filled the room. Yep. You’re gonna be just fine McPhail.