The piano tuner

The piano tuner’s visit to the music room was uniquely noticeable and appreciated. Mom habitually served him coffee and some merienda. I recall that those were the rare occasions when mom’s piano room absorbed the combination of assorted tunes from classical to jazz, suspended dust from the dismantled pianos mixed with the continuous thick mantle of cigarette smoke.

Wasn’t smoking baaad for the health? However, I never said this out to mom. I simply admired the man who could dismantle a piano and worked on every beam, string and spring. Yes! It was a wonderful sight to see the musical innards of the percussion instrument. And best of all, we didn’t have piano lessons for a while!

Mom admired the tuner. She would say that it was a difficult job because one had to know every string’s tune and tension. Thus, Mr. Rick Alcordo, managed to simultaneously smoke a tightly lip-held cigarette while both hands precisely adjusted each string’s tension. He interrupted this almost endless mechanical procedure with occasional sips of his now lukewarm coffee. Mom, however, was attentive to re-heat coffee and re-fill his cup regularly.

The best part came when Mr. Alcordo began playing musical scales and melodies on the instrument. Once in a while he abruptly stopped to further fine tune a string or two, lit another cigarette and continued pedaling his way from the base to the higher notes. Satisfied, he then asked mom to try out the piano for herself.

By this stage we lamented that piano lessons would soon resume.

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Mom was always grateful for the tuner’s perfectionist touch on her two pianos. She would always comment that tuners were getting harder to come by every year. The more people resorted to electronic keyboards, plus the general lack of interest in music as children fiddled with the then primitive gizmos of the 80s, announced the impending doom for the guild of piano tuners in our country.

I was told, however, that in some countries like Korea, the growing interest for music was good seeding ground for want-to-be tuners. In fact, they didn’t only go from house to house. Within the piano factory’s assembly line, there was a section for numerous tuners to work on pianos. Even though their skills were not as fine-tuned as mom’s tuner, in time most of them would acquire the art.

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In a similar way, spiritual directors have become as rare as piano tuners. Their numbers are not so many, not because there are few trained priests and lay faithful –although the Lord is the one who decides how many are needed to care for His Vineyard,– but because their function as directors or spiritual mentor-coaches is no longer fully appreciated at present.

In a world that is deeply immersed and dependent on techno-material things, people become less sensitive to spiritual and moral realities. Although there is an apparent search for some ‘inner soul’ fulfillment, these are still ‘materially infected,’ most seeking that which will make one feel good and abstractly inspired.

Moreover, people who have become so materially dependent no longer feel the need to be guided in life. They believe they can do pretty well with little or no aid at all. So why should they even bother asking anyone or someone regarding a reality that has little or no relevance to their life and possessions? Thus, spiritual directors are becoming a rare breed of people today.

Even though there seems to be a growing belief that one ought not to place too much premium on one’s personal spiritual growth, it cannot be denied that the ‘spiritual ingredient’ in man’s existence is something undeniably indispensable. Religion and its tenets are not only a ‘mental patch’ for the unanswerable queries of life (i.e. its origins, purpose, suffering and death), but man’s restless soul is only naturally fulfilled by this dimension.

A piano, as any stringed instrument, left on its own will eventually start to go off tune. No matter how one may try to ‘widow’ the proper pitch of each string, it will eventually lose its original note. Logically, one will resort to someone who possesses the expertise and the tools to make the instrument sound as it should.

St. Augustine using the analogy of the lyre says: “‘Whosoever wants to be My disciple, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.’ Let him not set down his psaltery, let him not set down his timbrel, let him stretch himself out on the wood, and be dried from the lust of the flesh. (St. Augustine, Commentary on Psalm 149) Our life is stretched into the proper spiritual tone when it submits itself to the discipline of prayer, sacrifice and also with the proper guide and demands placed by a prudent director. This instrument of God will tune the chords of our virtues, refine the melody of our prayer and tighten our resolutions in our personal examination.

Augustine continues, “The more the strings are stretched, the more sharply do they sound. The Apostle Paul then, in order that his psaltery might sound sharply, what said he? ‘Stretching forth unto those things which are before,’ etc. He stretched himself: Christ touched him; and the sweetness of truth sounded. (Ibid.)” When we dispose our souls to the guidance of a ‘spiritual tuner’, he then sets us in the presence of the Lord who will bring out a beautiful daily harmony from the virtues of faith, hope and love and thus allow us to constantly give glory to God, the Church and all souls.