Tony Martin

I'm very sad to report the death of my good friend Tony Martin earlier this week, after a battle with cancer which lasted for several months.

Tony lived in London for many years, and whilst there worked for the family business and in youth and community work, a field in which he excelled. He was a Liberal Party activist (in pre-merger days) and also studied in Sunderland for three years for a degree.

I first met Tony when he moved to York in the 90s. Immediately he applied his talents to a new situation, and turned his hand to running history tours for a while. He stood as a candidate for the Green Party in the local elections in 1999 (for Knavesmire Ward) and again in 2003 (for Micklegate Ward), the same year in which the Greens gained their first seats on the council in the neighbouring Fishergate Ward.

Tony became very interested in boating and waterways, and was the main driving force behind the establishment of the North Riding Branch of the Inland Waterways Association, in which he continued to play a pivotal role right up to the end. He also took a community boating certificate and was lead lock-keeper at Castle Mills Lock in York, which is operated by IWA volunteers under agreement from City of York Council (the owners). He attended a training session for new volunteers last September (picture above).

He also edited nine issues of "Ouse News" and subsequently fourteen issues of the "Northern Navigation News" (after the IWA newsletter was retitled), whilst continuing his networking and tireless advocacy to advance the cause of boating and the waterways in York and the surrounding area.

Tony's volunteering and community work in other areas continued to expand; he was actively involved as a member of the Guildhall Ward Planning Panel, with York's Unitarian Chapel in St Saviourgate, as a tenant inspector for the Council, for the York Older People's Forum and as a volunteer guide at Fairfax House in Castlegate.

I think what is most memorable about Tony is the immense energy that he brought to the many and varied things that he did throughout his life. He will be greatly missed.

Andy

How often does a piano need tuning?

A commonly-asked question is how often a piano should be tuned. The standard recommendation is every six months for a piano that is in a normal domestic environment, though some people choose to leave the piano for a longer period (a year or so). In a lot of cases, a piano left much longer than this will start to go quite noticeably out of tune.

New (or recently restrung) pianos will require very frequent tuning (every 3 months) for the first year or so - this is because the strings actually continue to stretch for a while after being installed on the piano and first brought up to pitch. After this, it should be fine to revert to a more normal tuning schedule.

What causes a piano to go out of tune?

The biggest single factor is changes in humidity, although temperature can also have an effect. The wooden parts of the piano will expand and contract very slightly as the relative humidity changes. In most centrally-heated homes, the humidity will decrease in the winter months because cold air is warmed up without adding any moisture to it, which makes the relative humidity drop, whilst in summer doors and windows are opened allowing in relatively moist air from outside.

Do all  pianos go out of tune at about the same rate?

Generally speaking, older pianos tend to go out of tune more quickly than newer ones because, over a period of time, the wrest plank (the piece of wood that holds the tuning pins) can dry out if the piano has been in a low-humidity environment and its grip on the pins will loosen. Additionally, newer pianos (post-1945) normally have wrest planks made of bonded cross-ply timber (rather like plywood) which is better able to resist the low-humidity conditions of modern central heating than the solid wood planks on older instruments.

Can a piano be "damaged" by not being tuned regularly?

The answer is no, simply not tuning a piano does not in and of itself cause harm to the piano or cause it deteriorate (though storing it in very damp, very dry or otherwise unsuitable conditions will). However, there are some significant disadvantages to leaving a piano untuned for a long period of time; gradually the pitch of the piano will drop and it is then a very much bigger job for a tuner to get it back into a good tuning condition (and on pitch) than if the piano has been kept regularly tuned (most tuners will quite reasonably charge more for this). Additionally, pianos can gain a stability from being tuned regularly which arises from the fact that the tuner doesn't have to move all the strings a long way every time, so if you habitually leave your piano for a very long while between each tuning, the stability may never be quite as good.

If a piano has been neglected for a very long while and fallen a very long way below pitch (such as a tone or a minor third), it might take several tunings to get it back to standard pitch if this is the desired option. With some older pianos, attempting to do this may be inadvisable. A piano technician will be able to advise on the best course of action depending on the age and condition of the instrument.