Monticello man has tuned pianos for over half a century

LOGANSPORT, Ind. (AP) - Richard Gorden sat at the concert grand piano center stage at the McHale Performing Arts Center.

But there was no one in the audience. He wasn't in a performance, or even preparing for one. Not his own, anyway.

Instead, the Monticello resident struck one key at a time between pushes and pulls on a lever in the exposed interior of the 9-foot Steinway & Sons instrument. With each note he played, he kept a watchful eye on the electronic device resting atop the piano.

Gorden has been tuning pianos for the past 55 years and currently serves a clientele across about 10 counties. The trade allows him to realize his love of working with his hands, running his own business and meeting different people.

"A lot of good people," he said of his customers. "Some people I've tuned their piano every year for 50 years. (I) get to know them over time."

He tunes pianos at churches, schools, homes and Purdue University.

"I've tuned pianos in all sorts of places," he said. "One time even in a bathroom."

The diversity keeps his work interesting, he said.

"There's a lot of variety. I like to tune the really fine pianos, like this," he said, nodding to the grand on the McHale stage before him. "I enjoy tuning the cheap, neglected pianos that have a lot of problems. (I) can make a big difference in a short period of time."

Gorden has tuned pianos in venues big and small.

"A lot of people think they don't have room for a grand piano, but I've tuned several in mobile homes," he said.

Last year he tuned a piano in a laundromat, whose owner he described as a talented piano teacher preparing to have her students give a Christmas recital right among the washers and dryers.

Pianos should be tuned at least once a year and concert pianos should be tuned before every performance, Gorden said.

Sometimes they even need to be tuned in the middle of a performance, Ken Fraza, facility manager of the McHale Performing Arts Center, said.

Fraza recalled how a show pianist Peter Nero performed at the performing arts center. He played so intensely that the piano had to be tuned during the intermission.

It usually takes Gorden 90 minutes to tune a piano in a quiet theater, Fraza said. Gorden did it the night of Nero's performance in 20 minutes in front of a chatting crowd.

"It was pretty darned amazing," Fraza said, also describing Gorden as "amazingly reliable," ''very methodical" and "courteous to a fault."

Gorden said he's also tuned pianos for Roger Williams, Dino Kartsonakis, Joshua Bell and Judy Collins.

He played clarinet and piano throughout his childhood and earned bachelor's and master's degrees in music from Ball State University. Gorden also played clarinet in a band while serving in the U.S. Army at Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas. He taught music and high school band for 21 years, mostly for the North White School Corp. in Monon. He owned a piano store for 17 years. While teaching, he tuned pianos part-time before making it his full-time gig.

Gorden got into tuning by taking a correspondence course and maintains a membership with the Piano Technicians Guild, which he said offers plenty of classes, conventions and seminars that allow him to keep his skills sharp. He's also a registered piano technician, a title earned after passing a tuning exam, technical exam and written exam.

When Gorden tunes a piano, he said he starts out by making one pass across all the keys. Changing the tension of the strings affects other strings, requiring him to go back over the keys again, sometimes two to three times.

He uses a tuning lever, or tuning hammer to tighten and loosen the pins holding the piano's strings in the part of the instrument known as the action. Tightening a pin makes its note sound sharper while loosening it results in a flatter sound.

When piano keys are pressed, they lift hammers that strike strings. Many notes have as many as three strings. For those, Gorden uses thin rubber tools to mute certain strings, allowing him to tune one at a time.

Gorden said he began his tuning career by using his ears and a tuning fork, which remained his main tools for 35 years before he got an electronic tuning device. Now he uses a combination of both methods. The direction in which a set of lights on his device rotates tells hims whether a note is sharp or flat. When the note's in tune, the lights stand still.

Much of Gorden's work takes place in the action, which he described as having a lot of moving parts that require adjustment over time and sometimes repair.

"There are not as many pianos and piano teachers now as there used to be, but I stay busy," Gorden said in a statement. "It is important that parents support music education for their children, and that communities support all of the performing and visual arts."

___

Source: (Logansport) Pharos-Tribune

___

Information from: Pharos-Tribune, http://www.pharostribune.com