THE PIANO-TUNER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 925, 19 March 1930, Page 7

THE PIANO-TUNER

RADIO OCCUPIES ALL HIS TIME PREFERS LISTENING TO OTHERS So many unkind things have been said by leading musicians throughout the whole world against wireless, and other forms of “mechanical music,” that I am extremely glad to pass on to you a little story about the man who comes to my house periodically to tune my piano, says a writer in a London magazine. I daresay you are not very fond of piano tuners. Neither am I in the ordinary way. Y T ou can’t listen to your wireless set comfortably when the piano tuner is at work on the piano in another room in the house can you? Tong-Tong Tong Ting. Ting— TONG! No wonder you don’t like piano tuners in general; but you will like my piano tuner. When my piano tuner had tuned my piano on the occasion of his last.visit, he was asked why he didn’t finish up by playing real music instead of —er— just scaling up and down the keyboard in haphazard fashion. He said: “I am afraid I am sadly out of practice, and I would hardly like to attempt to play anything. I used to play a great deal at one time, but since I took up -wireless I have had no time to play. “You see, I personally very much prefer to listen to the playing of music by others, and I get all the music I could possibly desire from my wireless.” What do you think of that, now? Do you like my piano tuner? Asked by the clerk at a Magistrate’s Court if he had paid his “hearing fee,” a litigant replied that he had not. The Clerk: “The magistrate cannot try your case until you have paid your hearing fee.” The Man: “I forgot. I have a listen-ing-in licence.'*