The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-03-07
GEMS ARE OFTEN
 LOST IN PIANOS Tuners Sometimes Make PeCu-
 liar Finds In Them IN HOME INSTRUMENTS Those of the Profession Are Born, Not Made-They Often Have to Deal
 With Artists With Pecu-
 liar Whims.
IN HOME INSTRUMENTS

From the Philadelphia North American.
 Piano tuners are for the most part graduated from piano factories. While the piano tuner is required to know every part in the makeup of a piano he is not necessarily a piano repairer Nor can the average piano maker or repairer tune a piano. There are hundreds of expert makers and repairers of pianos who wouldn't be able to tell one tune from another.
 'rhe piano tuner is born, not made His acute sense of the vibrations of sound is given to him at his birth, and the man who hasn't got this sense can't become a piano tuner.
 Like any other piano tuner who under stands his business and whose ear has been made normally acute by practice and training, I can detect falseness of a tenth of a tone in a piano even if I am only passing the house in which the in strument is being played, and l never have such an experience that 1 don't feel like going into that house and setting the thing right
 Most piano tuners have to run away from the barrel organs and street pianos, their falseness and discord are generally so nerve-racking
 Some piano tuners work on their own hook but the majority of them are at taehed to the piano establishment and get pretty fair salaries. It costs from S.50 to $10 to have a piano tuned the average being about $3 for a bit of care ful, painstaking work.
 For a laborfous and eXha austing task of tuning SuP6 q getting a instrument into condition for a great performer, tuners get a good-sized sum. Once I tuned piano for Paderewski The job took me six hours, I did the work un- der the almost constant supervision of Paderewski himself. He was pretty fussy at first. but after halting me several times he finally concluded, 1 suppose, that I knew my business pretty well and let me go ahead.
 Quite a number of years ago when Hans von Bulow visited this town I tuned the piano upon which he played He wouldn't allow the instrument to be tuned in the wareroom, one of his whims being that even a short removal of piano knocks it all out of tune; something in that theory at that. So 1 tuned 1t upon the platform upon which he was to per form.
 He stood over me all the time, letting out agonized whoops and German cuss words, until I couldn't help but laugh in his face.
 Finally, when l had the piano almost tuned, he gave a few more shrieks, and grabbing the wrench began doing the job all over again. l let him go ahead, and inside of three minutes he had the piano so hopelessly out of tune that it took me three hours to get it into shape again. Herr Won Bulow had to pay double for the little exhibition of temper
 "If I had kept and converted into money all the articles of value that I've found in pianos I've tuned it would make a very neat sum for me to fall back upon in my old age. This is especially true with reference to grand pianos in the homes of the wealthy.
 A few years ago I was summoned to tune a triangular piano in the residence of wealthy family, and on making a preliminary run over the keys l instantly detected the odd dangling in the upper register. The dangling, 1t seems, had also been detected by the young women of the family, but none of them had taken the trouble to investigate the cause of the unusual sound.
 Tt didn't take me very long to pick out from beneath the strings a diamond and ruby bracelet. A servant of that house. hold was even then languishing in prison on The charge of having stolen that brace let.
 When bangle bracelets were fashion able l used often to find between the piano strings and even sometimes under heath the keyboard small coins and med als that had been lost from the bracelets. A famous Chicago woman prominent in society in this country and abroad. suf- fered such loss while visiting here some years ago.
 Tt was small gold Roman coin with the head of Domitian, valuable from the numismatic point of view, but of many timer greater value to the Chicago wom- an because it had been given to her by Carmen Sylva, the Romanian Queen. She had lost it from her gold bangle bracelet of antique coins
 T found the coin underneath the kew beard of the grand piano in the house at which she had been visiting here sey- eral months after she had missed it When the coin was restored to her the lady sent most heartfelt letter of thanks and substantial check The let ter contained an intimation that I might do pretty well as a piano tuner in Chi cago. which didn't stir me to any wnd depths of enthusiasm. however. for I'd been to Chicago once"