A New York Times Notable Book A San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, and Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year “A gripping and resonant novel. . . . It immerses the reader in a distant world with startling immediacy and ardor. . . . Riveting.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times In 1886 a shy, middle-aged piano tuner named Edgar Drake receives an unusual commission from the British War Office: to travel to the remote jungles of northeast Burma and there repair a rare piano belonging to an eccentric army surgeon who has proven mysteriously indispensable to the imperial design. From this irresistible beginning, The Piano Tuner launches readers into a world of seductive, vibrantly rendered characters, and enmeshes them in an unbreakable spell of storytelling.

Provides all the information needed for restoring and maintaining pianos, both for professionals and amateurs.

Few music lovers realize that the arrangement of notes on today’s pianos was once regarded as a crime against God and nature, or that such legendary thinkers as Pythagoras, Plato, da Vinci, Galileo, Kepler, Descartes, Newton and Rousseau played a role in the controversy. Indeed, from the time of the Ancient Greeks through the eras of Renaissance scientists and Enlightenment philosophers, the relationship between the notes of the musical scale was seen as a key to the very nature of the universe. In this engaging and accessible account, Stuart Isacoff leads us through the battles over that scale, placing them in the context of quarrels in the worlds of art, philosophy, religion, politics and science. The contentious adoption of the modern tuning system known as equal temperament called into question beliefs that had lasted nearly two millenia–and also made possible the music of Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Debussy, and all who followed. Filled with original insights, fascinating anecdotes, and portraits of some of the greatest geniuses of all time, Temperament is that rare book that will delight the novice and expert alike.

This is the first book that teaches piano practice methods systematically, based on mylifetime of research, and containing the teachings of Combe, material from over 50 pianobooks, hundreds of articles, and decades of internet research and discussions with teachersand pianists. Genius skills are identified and shown to be teachable; learning piano can raiseor lower your IQ. Past widely taught methods based on false assumptions are exposed;substituting them with efficient practice methods allows students to learn piano and obtainthe necessary education to navigate in today's world and even have a second career. See http://www.pianopractice.org/

Pianos Inside Out takes an in-depth look at the history, design, and maintenance of the piano, and provides practical guidance to anyone who wants to learn how to improve action performance, or tune, repair, regulate, voice, or rebuild pianos. Covering a wide range of topics, from introductory to advanced, the book puts between two covers all the advancements and understanding gained by the piano industry over the last 30 years, to provide a unified and coherent view of that much-needed information, from coincident partial tuning and interval inharmonicity, to touchweight analysis, string leveling, and the different types of modern lubricants. Although written for hobbyists, students, and piano technicians, Pianos Inside Out will also help pianists and owners of pianos to better understand their instruments and to communicate more effectively with their technicians. The book is full of clear, concise, step-by-step instructions, and more than 700 illustrations and diagrams.