Fantastic Unisons and How to Find Them: How I got started.

One of the most common things I hear when telling people what I do for the dollar is "Really? Such a niche job!" And they are right. No one bats an eye when you tell them you're a plumber, a carpenter, or landscaper. They might be intimidated by you if you say you are an investment banker, but still not be too shocked. Heck, tell them you are a doctor, a law enforcer, or a professor at some esteemed university and you'll be granted a default amount of respect... but tell them you are a piano tuner or piano technician and the shock on faces makes it worth telling! Why? Because, while it is great work to do, necessary work, and even well paid work, it isn't common. Most kids don't grow up with "piano technician" as their aspiration. Even as a piano player for most of my life, it never once occurred to me as a child that there was a job for taking care of these pianos I so dearly loved to play... and as such, never considered it as a career path. In fact, most of my time spent tuning pianos has been spent as a side job and not a full time career path. So how did this start? What sparked the desire? Let's go back to the start of the millenium. The year 2000:

After staying with my grandparents for a short time at age 18, I went to stay with my dad in Gautier, MS. There, the true burdens of adulthood started weighing on me. No more being taken care of by elders. It was time to fend for myself. While standing outside of a mall in the neighboring town of Ocean Springs, MS, I was approached by a Navy recruiter. I'm sure you can guess where the story goes from here, and you would be correct. A boot camp and a year later, I was being medically discharged against my will. But, regardless of how my military career came to an end, I gained a very interesting skill while in service: How to tune pianos! "Wait. Hold up..." I hear you saying. There's a lot of skills and experiences people gain from military service, but this is one no one really expects to hear. But it's true. Before you think too hard, it wasn't military sanctioned training.

The ship I was stationed on was not yet seaworthy. It was a pre-commissioned ship still being worked on at a shipyard in Pascagoula. While I still had my daily duties, I would frequently visit the local USO. It was here that this skill came to be. I had asked the Lieutenant in charge if the USO had a piano I could play. He told me he could do better than that and led me to the basement. There, to my surprise, was a plethora of pianos. The basement was full of uprights and spinets. He told me that if I could fix them, I could play them. They were bound for the landfill anyway. I don't remember where I obtained my tuning equipment, but I obtained it and then spent the next few months going to the USO and the local town library to learn what I could about piano maintenance and repair. I worked hard to hone my skill to find unisons, learning the various techniques for ensuring strings don't pop (and I'm here to tell you, I broke a LOT of strings in this process), and learned some basic maintenance in unsticking keys. Eventually, by the 9th or 10th ruined piano, I managed to succeed. Each piano suffered less and less at my learning hands. I don't remember exactly how many pianos there were, but after I left the Navy, I would randomly find some derelict piano being given away in the want ads or elsewhere and offer to tune the piano before it finds a new home. This helped me to continue to hone the skill and gain more confidence in my abilities. Eventually, strings would be safe in my hands. To this day, I haven't had a broken string in many years. They will happen, I'm sure, but they are hopefully safer in my hands. (See my blog: Piano String Theory)

Finally, in 2003, after my dad had brought an old piano home, I tuned it to near perfection and right after that, I made the decision that I was going to start charging for tunings. Starting out as In-Tune Piano Service, the going rate for a tuning at that time in Mississippi was $60. Due to my inexperience, I barely ever tuned a piano. I would have someone ask me to do so about twice a year. Even as I moved around (eventually landing in Kansas in 2005) I would still do tunings on occasion. In the small towns that I hovered around, it just didn't seem like a feasible business. Still, I did more tunings per year in Kansas than anywhere else. Living in the Abilene/Salina area, I managed to get up to 20 tunings a year.

And that's where it stayed until I moved to Kansas City 2 years ago. Here is different. Here, there is a real market for it. Since I started tuning pianos in KC, the calls have been increasing exponentially... eventually to the point of letting me quit my other job. Now, tuning pianos is my life's work. It's what I love and I simply can't wait for my next opportunity to make a piano sing!