Harmonic Convergence: Brotherly Opposites Kurt and David Andersen Search for the Right Pitch

One is a famous novelist, the other a rebel piano tuner

Comments (0) By Gendy Alimurung Wednesday, Mar 25 2009

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The guy with the microphone circles them. Hendelman says that when he sits at one of David’s pianos, he feels freer than with any other. That his fingers glide on a passage and stuff comes out of him that wouldn’t normally come out. His floppy brown poet hair bobs as he plays a jaunty number he wrote for his daughter. Other pianists come into the atelier and get insane soft tones, cascading Debussy stuff. Tones David’s never heard before. That’s the real reason he tunes pianos, he says. To hear the geniuses play.

A classical pianist plays Mozart the minute he sits at a piano. A jazz pianist explores the ranges, tinkles out random chords, tests the darks, the lights, seeing how sweet and low the instrument can get. Hendelman is of the jazz school, so if it doesn’t wind up on the metaphorical cutting-room floor, perhaps on Kurt’s radio show you’ll hear him riffing on this exquisitely tuned piano.

Orly Olivier

Tuned in: The brothers Andersen, David (left) and Kurt

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Pianists, Hendelman explains, can’t take their instrument with them when they travel, as other session musicians do. The way a cellist might book a seat for his cello on an airplane. That’s why the greatest pianists always have a deal with the manufacturer to provide a suitable instrument at each venue — it’s consistency for the artist, and smart marketing for the company.

“I get it,” Kurt says.

“He has to dance with whatever skanky whore shows up.” David grins.

Once, when he was feeling smug, having just listened to Hendelman play a concert on a piano he’d tuned, David said, “Yeah, you must have to play some really nasty pianos in your career, right Tamir?”

Hendelman simply answered in his modest way, “Well, whoever shows up, I just make love to.”

Even some weird transvestite, David adds now.

“Well, maybe not that,” Hendelman concedes, and the brothers Andersen laugh.