Once again I’ve “clicked” with John Tynan. The other day I responded fully to a monologue he uploaded onto PRX about his shaved head. Today I’m marveling at his homage to the creative spirit. My poem, “The Piano Tuner,” in a recent issue of “The Atlantic Monthly,” harmonizes with what Tynan says about his piano tuner, Kevin Jenkins. (Is this weird synchronicity or what?)

Jenkins calls himself a “piano psychologist” who listens to people’s stories like a “shrink” at least as intently as he does to their pianos. Many of Jenkins’s clients regret having sold or given away their pianos. They’ve lost something of great value in their lives.

At this point in his energetic, easygoing way Tynan talks about how he used to enjoy playing piano at his grandmother’s house in Tucson; how his improvising at the keyboard was a peak experience; how it’s not necessary to take lessons and learn to be a concert pianist for us to experiment and have fun at the keyboard. In our striving to master the art of this and that, Tynan suggests that we’ve lost something extremely valuable, that is, the ability to enjoy music innocently and to trust our own musical instincts.

“People really can play the piano, regardless of their abilities. They should enjoy playing the piano,” he says finally while a beautiful bare-bones melody — half-Satie, half-Fauré? — begins to take over in the background. But this is not Satie, not Fauré. The music is being improvised by Tynan, or perhaps Jenkins, who, unselfconscious about whether he’s a “great” musician or not, is in perfect tune with — to quote my poem — Pythagoras and the stars.