Graphite and balsa

This article describes new violins and guitars made from graphite, balsa, and other new materials. The same ideas could apply to piano soundboards. It includes an interactive graphic showing how violins behave and how researchers are analyzing them.

The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes

There is a new movie where the hero is a piano tuner.

A tuner in literature

The whole way home he says “maybe” “maybe” “maybe” to himself, like a piano tuner at work, depressing the same key over and over again until it seems to vary slightly with each iteration, until the note starts to sounds subtly different, either because the string inside changes slightly or perhaps the world around it changes slightly at the moment the hammer strikes. Each time different connotations of the word emerge like secret frequencies revealed from a deep, rich vibrato. He takes a shower, smokes a cigarette, puts a pot of water on for farfalle, and the whole time he is making a song out of the one note.
—Charles Yu, “32.05864991%”

I hope this was someone's very first stringing job. 

Book about Ben's mom

An article in the San Francisco Chronicle reviews a new book about Jessica Mitford, the famous writer whose son Ben Treuhaft (above, right) we know from his Send a Piana to Havana.

In a back hall at the Radisson, a chart to guide business ethics.