Pio Trinidad

Background

Pio Trinidad was born on May 5, 1860, in Manila, Philippines. He was the first kid of seven children of Braulio Trinidad and Tranquilina Fernandez.

Education

Pio Trinidad obtained his primary education from a private school and studied first-year Latin under Hugo Ilagan. He did not have any interest in his studies and, being sickly, left schooling for good. His father had high hopes of making a doctor of him, but instead of attending school, he sought employment in the drug store of Pablo Sartorius in 1874, for his father ceased giving him money.

Career

After working in the drug store, having acquired some experience in the preparation of tinturas, jarabes, pastillas, emplastos and unguentos, Pio Trinidad transferred to the pharmacy of George Ludwig on Plaza Binondo.

In 1878 he shifted to another occupation which was closer to his inclination. He apprenticed himself in the watch and piano repair shop of Mariano Benitez. He learned first the mechanism of watches, but what intrigued him was the piano. In handicraft, he showed a facile hand. He made toys and a miniature boat, which he modeled two feet long, caught the fancy of Don Tobias Tuason. To his great delight, Tuason took his boat and gave him an old broken piano in exchange. In the condition in which Trinidad received it, it was a useless junk, but this was precisely the thing he wanted to have. He dismantled the dilapidated piano, learned more of its intricacies. After acquainting himself with the technique of piano tuning and repairing, he established his own shop, in 1879, on Calle Alcala (now Raon Street).

His father, now reconciled to his independent ways, provided him with some money, and Trinidad started importing pianos of Swiss make from C. Rondorf & Co. He also decided to amplify his practical experience with theoretical knowledge and so acquired and read books about the piano. In 1883, he married Juana Bernabe Lucena, and she increased his capital. His brothers soon joined him in his business and learned the art of piano assembling, tuning and repairing: Meliton became his chief assistant and technician, Gaudencio became skilled in assembly work and Miguel became skilled in tuning.

Trinidad was quite a sensible man and he saw the needs of his time. Pianos, like the Tuason possession, went to pieces for lack of minor repairs or replacement of parts which at the time had to be ordered from abroad in Europe. So Trinidad invented devices with the help of which piano parts could be manufactured locally and in sufficient quantities to supply the local demand. He succeeded in this enterprise by producing parts in a semi-automatic manner. Also, Trinidad had an inquisitive mind - he conducted experiments on how to make improvements on the piano, beginning in 1889. By 1895, he was building his own piano and, the following year, in 1896, finished the first one of his own manufacture: the case and frame being of acle wood, the bridge of the clavichord of dungon, the sounding board of kalantas. The first product was donated later to President E. Aguinaldo in Malolos. His second piano received an appreciative comment from the music critic Oscar Camps.

Trinidad, at the behest of Jesuit friends, devised a number of mechanical contrivances for the use of teachers in the classroom and in the Manila Observatory, instruments for making cycloids, a compass for drawing ovals, a device for making parabolas, an apparatus for demonstrating the velocity of a body falling at different trajectories, a silla ascensor for meteorological observers, etc. He devised a means by which to augment the sound resources of the piano, calling his improved make piano tubular. He also perfected the tremolofon (his own name) in 1895, by means of which invention a trill note could be produced on the piano with a powerful sonorous intensity by striking any key and releasing it without the need of repeating the process with the finger. Another invention which he made regulated the air pressure in the bellows of organs by providing the air chamber with a constant supply of air through a centrifugal pump, thus enabling the production of flawless notes. He attached this device first on the organ installed in the Recollect Church, and after a successful demonstration, the Augustinian and Franciscan church organs were fitted out. Many more church organs in the provinces were improved in the same manner. Later he conducted painstaking experiments on how to improve the sound reproduction of the graphophone by providing it with different mouthpieces of native wood, testing the effect of different music and sound effects on wood.

In 1903 Pio founded the Pio Trinidad & Co. on Calle Ronquillo which was both a music store and a manufacturing establishment and piano repair shop. At the end of the year, Jose Oliver, a Spanish clothier, who came from Barcelona in 1900, joined him as a business partner. During this period the shop was employing from twelve to fifteen workers. Up to 1905, his factory produced more than a hundred pianos, but lack of patronage and protection was discouraging, and he gave up the venture in that year to renew the importation business.

In 1906 Pio entered the furniture business and introduced veneer work on his products. In 1908 Oliver separated from him to establish an independent music store of his own, and the partnership was dissolved. Trinidad, however, continued the music firm under his name up to 1921, when it was finally sold to Rafael and Luis Echogoyen, proprietors of La Lira music store. In retirement, Pio devoted his time to making toys and gadgets. In 1923 he made two round tables, one of which, made of eighty-nine classes of native wood, was donated to Pope Pius XI. In March 1927 he traveled to Europe with his second wife, Natividad Bernardo, and returned in March 1928.

Achievements

• Pio Trinidad was known as a manufacturer and repairer of musical instruments, pianos in particular. Also, he gained prominence as the founder of the Pio Trinidad & Co.
  
  A violin and a piano, specially built by Trinidad for an exhibition in the St. Louis Exposition of 1904, received awards.

Personality

For Pio Trinidad, good food was his daily concern. He was a regular cinema-goer.

Connections

Pio Trinidad was married twice. On November 26, 1883, he married Juana Bernabe Lucena. The marriage produced five children, Jose, Maximo, Roman, Paz Vicenta and Juana. Natividad Bernardo was his second wife.

Father:

Braulio Trinidad

Mother:

Tranquilina Fernandez

ex-wife:

Juana Bernabe Lucena

Wife:

Natividad Bernardo

References

• Dictionary of Philippine Biography A book by E. Arsenio Manuel.
  1970