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Tonight I played a corporate event at the Stoney Hill Inn in Hackensack,
NJ. I cautioned the client in advance, as always, to make sure the venue
would have the piano tuned. I arrived and the piano was a disaster. Coming
from a place of lack like many musicians, which drives us to accommodate the
almighty gig at all costs, I generally play the out-of-tune pianos that I
have the misfortune to encounter. And tonight as usual I made do, but
regretted it. On this one the top half-octave was almost perfectly tuned a
half-step low, so when I needed those notes I had to transpose a half step:
Play an Ab to form an octave with the G below it, etc. That part of it was
almost fun. The bad part was that the piano just sounded like sh*t, and my
client, her guests and I all deserved better.
I've only refused to play because of bad tuning on two occasions. This past
May I played a Mothers' Day brunch at the Woodcliff Lake Hilton, also here
in NJ. I got there and the piano was completely out of tune. Some single
notes had three different pitches on three different strings. Playing it
was just not a possibility. I brought the problem to the attention of the
food & beverage manager, asked if there was another piano in the hotel, and
when that brought a negative response offered to go home and get my
keyboard. The guy was convinced that I was being a prima donna. While we
were in debate, one of the banquet managers who overheard the conversation
came over and said, "Well if it's that out of tune, don't play classical
music, just play jazz." (!) When it became apparent that I really was not
going to play the piano, the F & B guy became very annoyed and asked me what
agency had sent me. When I told him he said that he would instruct the
agency never to send me again, and proceeded to kick me out of the hotel. I
called the agent on my cell phone from the parking lot. He made a call over
this guy's head to the director of catering, who found a simple solution by
moving another piano into the room, one that was in much better shape.
(This other shnook neglected to reveal the existence of a second
instrument). I played the job.
This story, particularly the quote, was so absurd that I wrote about it and
sent it in to Bill Crow's column in "Allegro", the newspaper of the
musicians' union in NYC. It was published in the September edition, but
edited. Bill somehow did not want to publish the fact that I had been
kicked out of this hotel!
The other time I refused to play was at the NY Inter-Continental some years
ago. I had recently arrived in NYC, and was blessed to have a steady
5-night hotel gig. But when they neglected to tune their beautiful
Steinway, I began to ask the management to remedy the problem, and after two
months of playing on an embarrassingly out-of-tune instrument my asking
became begging and pleading. Finally I just arrived there one day, saw that
it still had not been tuned, told the manager I would not play it in that
condition and went home. I fully expected to be fired, and I really needed
the job, but figured I would rather wait tables than play another five-hour
shift on an instrument that sounded that bad. The next day someone from
hotel management called me and asked me if I wouldn't mind booking a piano
tuner for them. I continued to work there for four more years.
But after tonight I have come to a crossroads on this issue. I do not ever
want to play an out-of-tune piano again. Tonight was the last time. I am
going to carry my keyboard in the car whenever I go to any gig, and if the
piano is unacceptable, I will just bring the keyboard in and set it up. And
if the client or management want to know why, I will tell them that someone
neglected to tune the piano and isn't it fortuitous that I just happened to
have my keyboard in the car?! (smile!) And if they want to complain that
the little keyboard looks a little less elegant than their baby grand I will
say, "Well, somebody should have thought to TUNE IT!!"
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