For two hours today I sat in my living room wincing as the piano tuner slowly transformed my sadly out of tune instrument into something playable again. I keep my piano in the spare bedroom where the worst temperature fluctuation in our apartment takes place. The cool air flow of the living room window air conditioner can’t reach the piano in the devastating heat and humidity of summer, and the radiator with no thermostat, blasts warm air directly onto the piano all through the winter. I watched through the doorway as the piano tuner took apart my shiny May Berlin, emptied his case of tools, and began the painstaking process of plunking, tweaking, and adjusting each key, one by one until all 88 of them were in perfect tune. I was suddenly ashamed of how out of tune I let my precious piano get and hoped he wouldn’t scold me for it. I keep the outside clean. I polish, dust, and buff away marks. I keep the area around it clean, tidy, and vacuumed. But I’ve neglected the inner workings fo