The quiet between tuning sessions

It’s 6:47 a.m. and I just finished adjusting the A4 on a Steinway in a house where no one else is awake yet. The room smells like old paper and faint dust — not unpleasant, just… remembered. I sat for a minute with my hands still on the keys, listening to the way the sustain pedal held the last note like it was reluctant to let go. That’s the thing about tuning: you’re not fixing sound so much as remembering what it should be. The afternoon? That’s when the world gets loud again. But this? This is mine.