the bechstein.

There really is no better sound in this world (other than perhaps none at all, as in complete silence found only while high up in the mountains far removed from everything) than a just-tuned piano. Without the cancellations of duplexed and triplexed strings beating out of sync, the piano gains enormous volume – nearly too much for this little living room in which I find myself this afternoon. It has a certain power to it that it does not have at any other time, and a perfection in its imperfections. Made especially clear because of the routine of tuning, where you of course only tune one note per string at a time, and get quite used to the rather lackluster sound that creates. But then, once having finished all the keys, the task begins of tuning the unisons – over two hundred of them in all – and the sound begins to take shape.

After all too much time spent on keyboards in Logic, the inexplicable acoustic power of this hundred-and-thirty-nine-year-old German grand piano, strings copper wound by now-antiquated machines and hammers voiced by delicate hands nearly a century-and-a-half ago, the soundwaves upon soundwaves multiplying on top of each other until nearly exploding, is just an absolutely phenomenal sensation to behold.

I love acoustics.