You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Dealing With Different Pianos - #153

Episode Date: July 10, 2018

In this episode, Peter and Adam discuss tips for dealing with instruments in different conditions. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And this is the You Here at Podcast. Daily Jazz Advice, coming at you. Love it. What do we got going on today? Today we're going to talk about dealing with different pianos. This can be an issue.

Yeah, this can be an issue, but only for pianists. I mean, you're kind of a Steinway guy. You've got Steinway following you around with the truck everywhere you go? Yeah, except minus the truck and the guy and the piano in it. More like I'm following Steinways around all the time. Absolutely. No, this is for pianist listening. And really for anybody else, you should know about this, that this is kind of a struggle that pianists have to deal with.

I think, you know, I mean, for the longest time, we were the only ones who had to deal with, but I think bassists now are having to deal with this more and more as you can't fly with a bass anymore. Right. But basically, you know, wherever we go and play. That is good. Basically. I'm following you, man. Basically. Yeah, yeah. Wherever we go and play, we're kind of at the mercy of whatever condition the instrument is at the venue that we're at. And this can present a host of problems.

I mean, from at the very worst, missing strings, you know, to... Well, missing keys would be even worse, wouldn't it? That would be horrible. Missing keyboard? Somewhere. Piano on fire? Explosives in the piano? Come on, we've got plenty of worse things, right?

Yeah. Somewhere in some small town theater, there's some piano with a missing Middle Sea or something. Yeah, razor blades between the keys. That was always a rumor when I was at Juilliard that some pianists supposedly went around to They had special practice rooms for the pianists, the only piano majors were allowed to go. Hey, boy. I mean, they just had so-called better pianos in there. But supposedly they were like always check between the keys before you start practicing

because somebody puts razor blades to try to sabotage other pianists. That would be the worst case. That would be the worst case. Well, but so hopefully, you know, I know I've had to deal with this a lot in my travels. I know you would have to have had to deal with this too, even on bigger stages. Sometimes it's not great. Yeah. So, you know, we'll try to give you some tips on maybe dealing with that or even just

commiserate with you. Yeah, we have to give tips. Let's just talk about how bad. Let's just complain about it for 10 minutes. I mean, the first thing's first, though, is do you make sure that, I mean, you can't make sure every piano's tune, but especially if it's like my own gig. Yeah. I'll, and I don't know the venue that well.

Yes. I'll kind of call ahead. I'll call ahead. Call ahead. You've got to call ahead, man. Not just from a food order. Yeah, that's right. But to make sure that, like, you know, can the piano be tuned that day?

Well, and I think, you know, because we have a little bit of experience as being on the other side as being a promoter as well for shows that we've done here, we know that, yes, we always want to have the best conditions, but piano tuning is expensive. And so, you know, we might, even a good promoter might let that slide unless you're insistent upon it. I think a good promoter is going to make sure it happens. But they got to, I mean, I have compassion for the promoters, for the club owners and stuff because they have a lot of things to do. They're not always guaranteed to be making any money. And it's just like running any other kind of business. You have to evaluate things. But if the pianist is making a stink about it in advance, the piano's got to be tuned.

The piano. Now, when I do that, I don't know if you do this too. Like, you know, sometimes they'll be like, oh, it was just tuned last year. It's cool. You know, sometimes you get that. But sometimes you'll also get, you know, because we always try to be like it has to be tuned on the day. Yeah. But sometimes if they're maintaining it well and it hasn't been played for a couple days and it's, you know,

so you start, I guess you start. to have to be able to trust some of the promoters, some of the venues that they'll have it, but it's always good to call ahead and check. Yeah, it really is. I've actually started carrying around a tuning kit with me, too, to clean up any unisons. If you do that, which I do recommend you kind of,

at least learn a little bit about how that works. It actually is a great connection to the instrument for me to learn about it, but I do recommend that you go to your local piano shop and take a lesson. Right. Slipper slow, possibly? Slippery. With algae and everything. Yeah, a slippery tuning bed there that you can get into if you're not to do it right.

No, you've got to learn how to the notch technique. You've got to learn what not to do. Is this something you could learn from YouTube? Took me a couple. Yeah, you could maybe learn from YouTube. Took me a couple tries before I got it right. No, but you got to nod. It's been a great thing for us here to just be able to, you know,

for you to be able to just fix those unisons because that's the thing that's going to really could just drive you nuts. Especially recording. We're recording here a lot. Oh, yeah, yeah. You don't have to learn how to actually, like, fully on tune. Just you have to learn up unisons, you know, most. piano keys or most piano notes are made up of three actual strings yeah that have to be in tune with with themselves or else you get that honky tonk

oh yeah which can be a sound in themselves but not when you're playing 13th chords no no not at all so yeah well I would say that's that's certainly having the piano tuned is a big thing and then but then we get into an area where stuff is kind of out of our control as pianists even the tuning because you know if you're traveling or you don't have access to your tuner that you or your network of tuners, you don't know if they're going to be any good. You know if they're going to really put the time in. Oh, yeah.

Any kind of on the road, like, throughout, you know, America or Europe or whatever. Right. Plus, there's an old saying you can't polish a turd, which would be, you know, imply that you're even a great tuner with a subpar instrument, you know. So I think that, you know, one thing about just being a pianist, we have to either, you know, find it in our personality or develop it in our personality. a willingness to not be in control and to kind of roll with how things are. We just have to do it because we're going to be playing on different instruments.

Even if we're always playing on our own instrument, unless we're a tuner, a technician, we're going to be relying on someone else to maintain it. So it's very different. If you're a trumpet player, you almost never, I guess they do bring them into the shop. But, I mean, they can clean it themselves. They can certainly tune it themselves. They can keep the instrument with them all the time. Yeah.

It's kind of minimal. I mean, it's got upkeep, but minimal. that the player can't do. For the piano, I mean, it's a machine. And we're at the mercy of whatever it is. So I think we have to get, it is a mentality thing. We have to be like willing to kind of accept. I almost look at it as travel itself. Unless you own a private jet and you are a pilot and a meteorologist, you're going to have to give up some control when you travel. I was just thinking too, you know, we're talking about just the tuning of it, but then there's also the feel of it. Yeah. And that could be kind of the most

effective thing on the gig is you can get really thrown if something's too stiff or too light or uneven. Yep. You know, that can really suck. Yeah, so I mean, we really need to be a successful pianist. You have to develop a willingness to play on a number of different instruments, you know, until you're to the level of Keith Jarrett. And then even he, you know, complains and doesn't do gigs if the piano isn't right.

But I think, like, I try to look at it as from the positive glasses, have full, kind of thing as much as possible because different kind of pianos I don't bother me like if they're maintained well and if they're in tune you know like a stiff action a real loose you know kind of syrupy accent action well I guess syrupy would be sticky yeah that would be that would be tough I've ran into those too yeah but I mean you know something kind of middle of the road something you know that's even but maybe kind of bright on the other times you get an upright yeah an upright I mean, you really, I mean, I had a great gig last year at a little club in Italy on an upright, and it was not the greatest piano, but it was in tune pretty much, and it was an upright, but, you know.

Upright's going to have a good vibe, man. They can have a good vibe. I mean, I've seen you at Dermann's, you know, many times, you know, tearing it up. I mean, I actually tore up that piano. You did break that Steinway, yeah. We have a Steinway upright at my regular gig, and Peter came in, sat in one night, and we broke the highest E hammer. But just one. Yeah, I mean, the hammer flew off the piano.

dude. I think was old. It's 100 years old. It was a coincidence. But I mean, you know, musically edifying things can happen on a surprising number of situations if you're open to it. Well, here's just the thing, too.

Like, you know, as a local St. Louis guy, I've made friends with Joe Jackson of Jackson Pianos. And so he came and fixed that hammer the next day. Another tip for you. Make friends. That's right. Suck up to good piano technicians in your area. That's right.

And they'll come by and hook you up. Yeah, yeah. Because, I mean, I don't, I don't know of any place where the best piano technicians are not in high demand. Even with, like, the global piano trade being down, it's just, I mean, there's always tuners around, but the good ones, and this is like anything. You know, you don't want to be on that waiting list. You want to have that personal number. You want to be able to text them. But the thing with Piano Text is that they love pianos.

And they, most of them, really like pianists and want your community to have good pianos and are proud of the work they do. Absolutely. I mean, sometimes I think they look, well, first of all, most of them are pianists, too, on some level. But I mean, they certainly know more and probably love the actual instruments and the machinery of it and the art of it, you know, better than pianist, you know. So, I mean, it's a team. It's a team thing. And we want to look at them as a team. So even like if you're traveling somewhere, like I always, if I have a chance to meet the technician, I always want to just talk to them. Not even necessarily to tell them, do this, do that. I mean, occasionally I might request a lot. little thing but it's got to be something they can do quick because they're usually there for a touch up between sound check and the gig don't ask them to reshape that yeah yeah exactly while the bass

player still like tuning and all this stuff you know just let them do their thing and they're probably gonna know better than you anyway they're certainly going to know that instrument better than they yeah i was going to say they probably work on that piano every week yeah so they know it really well but usually i'm just more about like kind of you know thanking them and just hey how you doing getting to know them so next time when i come back you know because i really see them as as as part of the team it's i mean it's kind of for the piano sounds of that you evening, it's the piano technician, the pianist, me, and the sound engineer. And then the other musicians are doing their thing. But I mean, like, that's kind of team piano in terms of the

piano. The whole goal is that the piano sounds good to the audience. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. But I think, yeah, just the general mentality of like, you know, don't be a big baby and complain about everything because it is what it is. I mean, I like the call ahead. I mean, we do the things in advance that we can. But ultimately, you've got a piano. If there's no razor blades in between the keys, just play the damn thing. Yeah. And keep your child. chops up too. You know, that helps with things that feel weird. If you can't handle a stiff piano, you probably need to work on your technique a little bit. You know, you're not using enough. I know what I mean? Like, you got to keep you got to keep chops in a place where it almost doesn't matter what the piano feels like. Yeah. And I mean, if the thing is operating, you really, I mean, think of all the classic recordings that were done on out of tune subpar pianos. Oh, yeah. You know, that are just wonderful documents that we love to listen to. So you really don't have the excuse. So, you really don't have the excuse. please just like go into the situation and always as much as we can let's let's try to make the best let's not be piano babies agreed agreed let's raise piano babies up to be piano adults

oh piano baby pianos sounds so cute cool well hope you found this one helpful uh sorry at all the singers guitarist trumpet players saxophone yeah total lack of interest on this one that's okay i mean sorry not sorry because they get to bring the instrument they practice on wherever they go i know that must be cool i know and i mean everybody's like oh You're so lucky you play piano when we're traveling because we don't have to bring anything. But that's, yeah, I'm like, wow, I'd love to have my instrument with me all this. I guess, you know, the sweet spot, you know, because their guitar and stuff is really hard, you know, to get on the plane. And they don't want to check violin as a nightmare because you can't check it, but it doesn't fit in certain places.

And then it's temperamental and everything. But the piccolo, the piccolo is not super temperamental. It's small. I mean, it could fit inside a purse. It really can't. Even a man purse. Yeah. I think a piccolo could fit in a, um,

One of those, they're coming back. Oh, the Fanny Pack. Fanny Pack. Yeah. You could, you could. Bumb bag for those in the UK. What? Bum bag in the UK.

Bum bag. Man, they got screwed up words for everything over there. Well, to them, Fanny is really bad work. Oh, really? Tell us the bum is equally bad. No, I was talking to my cousin who lives in London, and he was, he's an architect. And he was telling me, he's, I said, what are you been working on? He's like, oh, we have this new housing scheme we're developing.

I was like, ooh, sounds, uh. Housing scheme. And he's like, what do you mean? I said, well, a scheme is kind of nefarious in nature. He's like, no, not at all. That's like basically it means plan. Yeah, I mean, that's what he means. We've taken it to mean like some kind of Ocean's 11 plot.

It's a scheme. But I was like, are you serious? Yeah, he's like, yeah, it's the housing scheme. I was like, all right, how do you go? Well. You'll hear it.