We moved several times after my husband got his PhD and before he figured out that academia was not for him; our piano traveled around with us from one little apartment to the next. I was surprised at how well it seemed to hold its tune, and surprised again when I finally made an appointment with the piano tuner. It had stayed in tune with itself but it was horribly flat. He struck a 440Hz pitchfork, and then played our piano's A, and the contrast was painful to hear.
The surprising part was how much better the piano sounded when he was all done: warmer, brighter, fuller. He explained that the instrument is crafted so that it sounds best when it's tuned just right. It's not only about the strings vibrating, but the wood resonating with them. As the piano coasted further away from concert tuning, it lost the sympathetic resonance of the wood. I have a feeling I am not explaining it in a way that an acoustician would approve, but we'd agree about the result: the instrument's tone became duller and emptier.
I remembered it this evening because the opening hymn at Mass was a favorite of mine: Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. The second line is "Tune my heart to sing thy grace." I've sung it a kabillion times before, but tonight I thought about my piano as I sang it. I have also been fashioned to make beautiful music. I can contribute to creation's hymn, in which the seraphim sing "Holy, holy, holy" and the ice and snow and lightning and clouds bless the Lord together. If I yield to the one who knows the instrument best, how much more pleasing will its song be?
When a piano has slid away from its proper tuning and into flat dullness, restoring its real sound is a fiddly process. The tuner goes up and down the soundboard, listening and tweaking until the notes can ring clear and true again. I'm thinking about that tonight as I reflect on a day in which cranky and sulky dominated over joyful. I'm still singing: Tune my heart to sing thy grace.
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