TORONTO — Ari Isaac sees his blindness as an afterthought. It hasn’t stopped him from water-skiing, it hasn’t stopped him from tuning pianos and it hasn’t stopped him from becoming the only Canadian artisan to handcraft piano hammers and bass strings.
Ari Isaac, who has been blind since he was 18, makes piano hammers and bass strings by hand. [Rita Poliakov photo]
“When you ask… about special difficulties… I have to laugh, because I don’t look at [my blindness] like that,” he said in his Toronto home. “I don’t think about it.”
Isaac always had poor sight due to glaucoma, but at 18 years old, around the time he moved to Canada, Isaac lost his sight completely.
“When I first became blind, of course it’s difficult… If you’re going to overcome it, it takes awhile. I decided I’m not going to let it stand in my way,” he said. “The world stops if you let it. I don’t let it.”
At work, Isaac relies on his sense of touch and his hearing.
“In my head, I view the world from a visual side. When I look at you, I can’t see you, but I know how tall you are from the way you walk. I can tell if a person is slim or fat, skinny or short.”
Isaac feels his way through his home-based workshop, weaving around wooden desks, metal machines and dozens of bass strings. Eventually, he stops at a small desk in the back, where he keeps a roll of sheep wool, the best kind of material to use when covering piano hammers.
“It’s springy… I looked for something that had spring in it,” he said, adding that the more flexible a piano hammer is, the richer the sound it will produce.
“Most hammers cannot flex, I’ve always made hammers that can. It changes… the intensity of playing.”
Any music drifting through Isaac’s house will probably come from his CD player. Isaac, who was born into a musical family, stopped playing piano in his youth. But he never stopped enjoying it.
“I grew up immersed in classical music. By the time I started tuning, I had a really good idea what musical tone is about,” he said.
In his late teens, his family encouraged him to apprentice in piano technology, which includes piano tuning and rebuilding.
This was where he learned the anatomy of a piano.
“At the time, in Israel, when we needed parts, we couldn’t get them abroad,” he said. This meant that the parts were made virtually by hand.
After moving to Canada and continuing this work, Isaac noticed that most piano parts, like hammers, were imported internationally from factories, rather than handcrafted by skilled artisans.
“Eventually, I started rebuilding pianos. You put new strings on pianos, put new hammers in. I noticed [that] the hammers that I was buying, I couldn’t get them to do what I wanted, no matter what I did,” he said. “I decided I wanted to make my own bass strings and hammers. Those are the two parts that really make a difference.”
When a piano’s hammer hits the string, it stops the string from vibrating, thereby “killing” part of the note, Isaac said. This creates a tinny sound. By using flexible materials to make the hammers, he can create longer, richer notes.
As one of only a handful of artisans who makes bass strings and piano hammers in North America, Isaac has worked for many famous musicians, including concert pianist Sally Christia and jazz pianist Delbert Bump, as well as on comedian Robin Williams’ piano.
But for Isaac, his job isn’t about celebrities.
“I wanted to contribute something to the world of music,” he said.
When asked what special difficulties a blind piano technologist may face, Isaac pauses for a second, thinking. Finally, he has an answer.
“Not being able to fly a plane,” he said.
For more information about Isaac, visit www.isaacpiano.com.
