I get a call from a girl, who wants me to tune her parent’s piano. Warning lights immediately start flashing in my mind. “Has she asked her parents?” I wonder. I should probably qualify her about these things, but I don’t ask.

I feel very lucky sometimes as a piano technician to enjoy a few perks that most other professions don’t. One of the biggest fringe benefits of my job is that the view from my office changes every day.

I was tuning in a recording studio, when I received an email asking for a bid for the installation of humidity systems for all the 54 pianos in the music department at a major University during their Spring Break.

UPDATE: 
Chloe is doing better than ever! After returning back to school in Taiwan, she was asked to perform at Milennium Park with none other than Joshua Bell via Skype for the Ronald McDonald House 40th anniversary celebration!

‘Twas the night before Christmas. What was I to do? 
The grand wasn’t tuned yet and I had the flu. 
With our Yule fest approaching, I found out with dread
That the pedal was squeaking and the B flat was dead.

We were able to get a wonderful Yamaha upright piano for the new Ronald McDonald House, and it was recently moved to the new location and tuned, and since then Chloe has been serenading everyone in the new facility with Mozart, Beethoven and Rachmaninoff.

That’s Mike. Overwhelmingly positive, and not about to hang around, even for a second, with anyone who isn’t. But Mike wasn’t always that way.

The competitive spirit between temperaments is unfortunate. Not everyone's taste is alike, just as all music is not alike. Equal Temperament works better on some music than does Well Temperament. Well Temperament works better on some music than Standard Equal Temperament.

Grandma got run over by a Baldwin,
Caroling at our house Christmas Eve.
People say there's no such thing as tone-deaf,
But as for me and Grandpa, we believe.

One of the best parts about my work is the connection I have with my customers - And sometimes their quirky pets. I feel lucky to have people that I work for, who are artistic, inspired, creative and interesting.

“So, do you still want to be on the show?” he asked. “We need someone to play ‘As Time Goes by’ on the piano from ‘Casablanca’ this Tuesday. Do you think you can do that?”

I think he was in some ways still searching for answers, and out of the blue he asked me why I tune pianos. Why do I tune pianos? I hadn’t thought about that in a while, so it took me a few moments to come up with the answer.

Chloe came to the piano and started playing and my heart completely melted when she did. Never have I heard a child that age play with such depth of emotion. You can see the video I took below.

Every kid in Northshoreville liked music a lot...
But the Grinch, who lived north of Northshoreville, Did NOT!
The Grinch hated music! Not a soul knows the reason,
But especially during the Yuletide season!

You never know in life how much affect you will have on other people, and in return sometimes it’s the people you expect the least, who wind up affecting you the most. Such was the case with Abie. 

Abie was far and away the most precocious and stubborn student I ever had to teach to play the piano.

Below is a menu of some of the types of tunings I have available for my clients upon request. I have tried to list the characteristics of each tuning, and how it might be used in the musical literature, so that if you should decide to choose one for your piano, you may do so knowing better what to expect, or knowing better what to request from your piano technician.

There is more than one way to tune a modern piano. In fact, the possibilities are limitless. And yet in this century only one tuning, Standard 20th Century Equal Temperament, has dominated almost all Western music.

Recently I went to a seminar put on about historical tunings. The first part of the program was a demonstration of three pianos, all tuned to differing tunings, however this time his lecture had a little different and quite unexpected twist…

I just shook my head and thought to myself; how ludicrous to play an entire concert with a piece that was intended to demonstrate the amazing varieties and colors of a Well Tempered tuning, but instead tuning the instrument to Equal Temperament, which totally removes any key color or variety.

According to one of my customers, there were at one time more pianos in the United States than bathtubs. At one time there were as many as 50 to 60 piano factories in Chicago alone.