“You don’t really have to pay attention to what you’re doing. “When you start using a machine, you are allowed to become kind of lazy,” he added. It’s all about the ear, Elliot said later. After tearing into a Mozart concerto, Goode complimented Elliott. The impish-faced pianist wanted another rehearsal before that night’s performance.Įlliott hurriedly collected his tools and retreated backstage. Goode appeared from the gloom just as Elliott finished. Elliott jabbed one hammer with a needle - “sugar-coating” it - to render the string less strident. They bounced on the Swedish-steel strings like woodpeckers peppering bark. “Richard Goode is a very sensitive player,” Elliott said as he tinkered with the Steinway’s felt hammers. Household pianos typically are tuned once a year. It took him an hour to sweeten the Steinway. He drifted into the craft after studying piano. “Tuning is creative.”Įlliott has tuned the Music Center’s pianos for 17 years. “A machine is very rigid,” said the Pasadena resident. “Maybe they never really learned to tune by ear.” He said no computer can “hear” the subtle tonal differences between two pianos, or along the multi-string unisons within a single instrument.Įlliott also said the gadgets can’t “stretch the octaves,” making the bass flatter and treble sharper - to suit a performer’s taste. “There are a lot of people who use electronic tuners,” said Elliott, a soft-spoken 51-year-old with clipped, graying hair. The B flat reverberated like a pipe banging in a storm drain, only purer. His task was to improve the “feel” of the piano for soloist Richard Goode.Įlliott tugged his tuning hammer - a misnamed wrench - this way and that on the pin of a B-flat string, adjusting it by hair-widths, while pounding the key. Elliott stood over a nine-foot Steinway on the darkened stage of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.
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