The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1919-03-25
.P|AM0-TUafR AMONG
THE D0UGHB0YS.

Paris. March ga piano tuner on
battlefield. wandering in motor
truck UP and down between forlorn
and abandoned trenches looking for
pianos which he may restore to per-
feet pitch Is somewhat incongruous
and amusing fancy.
Piano-tuners are, however. now In
the ranks of Il e Y. NJ. C. A.. an ar
rooa AZ Wen k qYuS y Srrnorf,o,rs
humor the young and singing A. e. r.
And these men in the service of the
Y. Nj. c. A. who have travelled UP
and down the American encamments,
tuning fat tired piano here, and
hammering on battered case there,
can realize the pianos part in the
war. and the role II plays now in the
hard business OF keeping amused men
who want to be on the move In the
direction of home.
There have always been pianos
scattered about "Y" huts in France
never quite enough to go around
but only within the last few months
nave piano-tuners been employed in
the job OF retaining and salvaging
pianos, repairing these battered In
struments of expression on the spot in
some cases, and IN others where the
them to the Y. NJ c. A. warehouse In
Paris for more severe surgical treat
ment.
There is no possible way OF est
mating exactly the exact mum Der Of
pianos now seeing service In the
American arny, for in addition to 100
or moro pianos shipped out to the Y.
NJ. c. A. huts in all parts of France
and Germany. within tho last year.
there must be added the pianos
bought or borrowed In villages by In
dividual ~Y". secretaries, the pianos
contributed by individual companies
OF soldiers and the pianos saivaged
from German dugouts. Some of these
pianos are picked up secondhand in
French towns; others are war tro-
phies taken from German camps or
duEouts somewhere back of the old
lines which gave way finally on No
vember IL. These pianos the Ger
mans took originally from French
homes.
There is one OF these much travel
led pianos In low-iying French
farmhouse near the little French vii
iage or Issencourt. where the Signal
Corps STAFF of the l5Sth division has
carved 1t. One OF the young officers
in charge Of that corps directs the
travels OF that piano with the COM
pany up and down the line With
the ceiling patched I'D over It's head
to keep out the rain. few sheets Of
ragtlme. a violinist and an expert Jazz
pianist from the company. the head
quarters of the Signal Corps turns
itself night after night into some
thing almost as good as the sitting
room at home on Saturday nights.
piano at war, naturally. suffers
far more from the strain of exist
ence than the good old upright which
bias never left the library for the
front Pianos in France at present,
in addition to their general condition
of constitutional frailty are an ex-
pensive and rare commodity; piano
manufacturers with few exceptions
closed down their factories in August,
1914, and there are therefore few on
tho market but second hand veterans
This makes the situation all the
harder for the director OF the piano
repairing staff Of the equipment de-
part,nent of the Y. NJ. c. A.-Mr. e.
II. short, who used to have music
store In Pomona Cal When Mr..
Short deafened by the shouts of "Y''
hut secretaries for more and more
pianos. goes out into the market to
buy. he finds but few and those some
what decadent.
From September iast, when the sal
vaging began, until the end OF Janu-
airy, this year. some 125 pianos have
been made over in the Y NJ, G. AS
Paris warehouse and sent back to the
field. Some seventy battered instru-
menty IN huts and barracks have been
tuned and repaired and repatched,
thereby increasing their resistance as
we'll as their tunefu,ness. According
to Mr. Short, the life OF an army piano
&c 10 xyz 4t~.A
means of estimating how much longer
1t will ask or how long It will remain
In tune, But unless II is improvi-
IDENTITY dropped out In the rain or
showed In a damp corner. one treat
ment from the '~Yr repair department.
will I'm average cases prolong it's life
for foursto six months,
t.. The men who are employed az TIM
Fers In TINS REPAIR depaftrnert Sunuer'
Mr., Short. IN addition to several in
the army to whom tools have been
supplied. may seem large for the mere
salvage OF pianos. But as Mr. Short
explains. tu1ing one piano means a
whole days work in most cases.
Time is the greatest asset in this
work, for until the Y. NJ. c. A. tuner
sees the piano ne can have no esti-
mate of the size of the job that awaits
him. For the American soldier, mu-
sic lover that he is, deals out his af-
lection to the piano with q somewhat
overpowering. destructive demonstra-
tiveness If there were such O. thing
as "A tank corps school OF piano exc
cution, these ragtirne artists in the A
r. r, who solace their souls at ''Y''
hut keyboard. might easily fall into
hat classification.
A PERISCOF