WHEN A PIANO FALLS IN YOUR LAP: A New Owner's Guide to Used Pianos

By Sarah Czarnecki and Gary Everett

You have a piano -- and it's been ages since the thing's been tuned. Time to fix it.

Whether you're guilty of using your heirloom upright as non-musical furniture or you rescued a beat up baby grand from the curb, your tired old piano deserves proper care and maintenance. That means cleaning, repairing, tuning,

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sarah Czarnecki
• Release date: Jan 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9798985516302

Sarah Czarnecki

Authors Gary Everett and Sarah Czarnecki are a father-daughter team. Gary has a master's in music education and is a PTG, NAPBIRT, and AMERA associated professional instrument repair guy with over 35 years' experience. He runs Everett Piano Services, co-owns In Tune Piano Supply, teaches graduate-level college courses on instrument repair, and performs professionally. Sarah, well, she's a lot less musical. She is an author and independent writer who develops content for companies around the world. She also writes nature articles for magazines and environmental nonprofits. They both live in Wisconsin.

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Authors’ Preface

Introduction

I never meant to own a piano, let alone learn how to maintain one.

A few years ago, I had just bought my first home: an historic Victorian with a vacant front room that badly needed furnishing. My dad is a piano technician, among many many other things, and I knew he had a piano or three stashed at my grandparents’ farm. He’s always kept mountains of musical instruments squirreled away somewhere. Some are his to play, some are repair works in progress, and others he’s held onto for me and my brother. Just in case we ever miraculously developed musical skill. So when he offered me an old Kimball spinet that’d been collecting dust in a tractor barn for the last two-thirds of my life, how could I say no?

Being over 120 years old, my house is admittedly a little wonky. Moving a 400-pound musical beast through nonstandard door frames without damaging the fragile original woodwork was a challenge, to say the least. The exhausted movers plunked it in the front room and left in a hurry, probably afraid I’d ask them to bring in any more of Dad’s pianos.

And so now I have a piano in my house. Forever.

For having been stored in a barn for 20 years, it’s actually not a bad instrument. It was stored properly, so it came to me looking surprisingly clean. Its blonde wood was beautiful, if a little scuffed, and under the lid, the original Kimball brand artwork looked as good as new. I smiled when I saw my dad’s old maintenance notes scribbled in pencil. Inside, the piano had all its strings, decent keytops, and the action worked just fine. Nothing broken, nothing damaged. Yes, it was impressively out of tune, but my dad has been tuning pianos longer than I’ve been alive. I had nothing to worry about. Right?

So here’s the thing about pianos. Keeping them in good working condition isn’t a set it and forget it kind of deal. You need to take care of the instrument regularly, especially if it’s not new. Even more especially if it’s been in storage for decades. It takes a lot of elbow grease to domesticate a piano that’s gone wild.

But I figured it’d be fine. I grew up absolutely immersed in the world of music.

I was fortunate this way. Live music, recorded music, music repair, and yes, music lessons played a huge part in my life. I had my own practice instruments and there were stacks more at my disposal. Brass, woodwind, strings, percussion—anything I wanted. If I felt like playing an oboe one day and a tenor sax the next, I could. Dad’s job as a band director slash piano tuner slash professional musician slash repair tech meant I had opportunities most other kids my age didn’t.

Whenever Dad had a piano job at a church or school, nine-year-old me would ask to tag along. Yes, the tuning process is long and mind-numbingly boring when you’re a kid, but I knew he had a packet of Mike ’n Ikes stashed in his repair bag and he’d play Saturday in the Park for me when he was finished with the job. To this day, I’m pretty sure that’s the only song I’ve ever heard him play on the piano. Not counting the plucking and atonal sound-bending that comes with tuning, that is. Some of my fondest, strangest childhood memories involve wandering the darkened hallways of the local Catholic high school on a Saturday, listening to the metronomic plunking of piano strings echo in the empty building.

Every day, there was music.

Unfortunately, I didn’t inherit any musical talent of my own. I’ve tried to learn, but it’s just the hand I was dealt. In spite of my lack of skill, I have always enjoyed hanging around musicians who took their art seriously. Whether I was shadowing a tuning, loitering in the pit between acts at the local high school musical, or browsing the half-destroyed instruments hanging from the ceiling at the music repair shop, it was the behind-the-scenes work that interested me most. Tagging along to all the gigs and jobs didn’t inspire me to play, but it did set the stage for a whole childhood’s worth of fond memories with my dad. I’ll always be grateful for the countless hours he spent sharing his life’s work with me.

And my mom’s no musical slouch, either! She doesn’t play anymore, but she does run an online piano supply company that’s taken on a life of its own. In Tune Piano Supply is a household name—and not just in our family. She could name-drop some big customers if pressed. Think international music celebrities and Fortune 500, big. The shop's comprehensive inventory and ever-growing mountain of orders would be too much for most people, but not for her. I am constantly impressed by her determination to bootstrap her own business, spurred on by an unwavering entrepreneurial spirit. I thank her for inspiring me to take control of my own work and never let go.

Me, I’m just music adjacent.

So what was I thinking, adopting a piano? I never played the thing; it just sat in the room. Sure, I’d seen a few tunings, but what did I know about piano ownership?

Nothing. Not at first.

For years my poor old piano sat in the front room collecting dust and kid fingerprints. Every day it fell further and further out of tune.

Years later, when I set out to pursue my career as a writer, I asked my parents if their online music shop could use some site maintenance. It could, as it happened, and a one-time product description tweak snowballed into a technical text overhaul, long-term social media management, blogging, and a whole lot more. I suddenly had no choice but to learn about the shop and what all the tiny little piano pieces do. We worked together, my parents and I, to deep-dive into piano care, maintain the shop, and post regular articles for other piano owners.

And then... I looked at my worn-out spinet with new eyes.

Having written about countless piano care topics, I suddenly knew why my instrument couldn’t hold a tune. Why the keys stuck and how to clean the nail polish stains off the keytops. I knew what to do when my kids invariably dropped their Legos into the action. I could tune this thing myself and even perform some minor repairs. My eyes had been opened!

Before long, I realized that I had learned enough techniques and gathered enough tools that I could help people become better musical stewards. Maybe I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, but it turns out that musicality isn’t actually necessary for proper piano care. Anyone can do it! And I know there are a lot of people like me: non-musicians who find themselves with a piano in the house. They don’t need to feel overwhelmed. They could handle it. I could handle it. I do handle it.

So I thank my parents. I thank them for a lot, but today, I thank them for letting me tag along. For giving me a peek behind the scenes. For giving me the tools to self-direct. For showing me how beautiful music can be, even if I don’t make any at all.

— Sarah Czarnecki

Introduction

A lot of people think that because I’ve been tuning and repairing pianos for half my life, I must be an awesome piano player. Sure, I like pressing the keys now and then, but I definitely don’t fancy myself a pianist. Never did any consequential work with pianos until music school, and even then, it wasn’t really my thing. It interested me like any other instrument did, but I always liked pianos mostly for the mechanics. This tends to confuse people.

Think of it this way. A pilot is great at flying the plane, but he doesn’t fix the airplane, doesn’t pour in the jet fuel, doesn’t make sure the engine is working properly. But there is a guy who does these things. This guy may be an expert in how airplanes work, but he probably doesn’t fly the thing.

I’d be the guy who fixes the jet engine.

And although I’m not a pianist, I am a musician. Primarily self-taught, which is to say I made a point of teaching myself everything I wanted to know, with or without an instructor to guide me.

Like a lot of kids, I grew up playing with toy instruments, but we also had a real piano at home. My mom played when she was younger, and I remember her playing only one song: Evening Chimes. It may have been the only song she knew. When I was young, I enjoyed listening to her play, and as I got older, I wanted to try making music of my own.

When it was time to choose an instrument for elementary school band, I was immediately drawn to the saxophone. Wanted to start with a bari, but that wasn’t one of my choices, so I compromised for tenor and started there. I had a knack for music, and quickly became proficient with the sax. I got a little bored with just one instrument, and before long, I wanted to learn more. Elementary school classes didn’t really give me the opportunity to start new instruments during the year, so I had to take my learning into my own hands.

By high school, I was especially interested in the clarinet, and thought bass clarinet was pretty cool. To play that, you really need to learn how to play the regular clarinet first. So that’s what I did. I borrowed an old white painted clarinet from my high school and bought a lesson book from the music shop. Took the book home, studied the fingering chart, blew in the small end, and practiced until I got the hang of it. That went pretty well, so I figured I could teach myself more instruments. Flute, trumpet, percussion—before long, I had exhausted the school’s stock of horns to borrow.

That was the extent of my music education until I went to college. I got my bachelor’s in music education from the University of Wisconsin–Parkside and later, my master’s in music ed from VanderCook College of Music in Chicago.

In the meantime, I worked as the chief tester for G. Leblanc in Kenosha. It was a popular musical instrument manufacturer and I was responsible for all final inspections, repairs, regulation, and playtesting all the woodwinds before they left the factory. The company liked my work, so I represented them at trade shows, with visiting musicians, and did plenty of shop tours.

Later, I went back to school—this time as an elementary school band director. Did that for many many years, and of course, I had to learn even more instruments. As a band director you need to be able to work with all the kids’ instruments. So I learned some more until I became what I like to call a musical general practitioner. By that, I mean I can play Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star on pretty much any instrument, so long as it’s a woodwind, brass, or percussion. Things with strings on the outside are not my strong suit.

Because I’ve always liked doing lots of different things, I made a point of trying out for almost any performing gig that sounded fun. That’s opened a lot of new doors for me. I’ve performed with nearly every woodwind instrument, plus some brass, percussion, vocals, and even a shofar. I’ve done everything from jazz bands, symphony orchestras, pops, parades, weddings, festivals, fairs, fundraisers, Broadway-style musicals, and live radio. Conducting, recording, and lots of behind-the-scenes work, too. Essentially, if it exists in my local music scene, I’m there.

Getting my job teaching grad-level classes at VanderCook came as something of a surprise, but considering my predilection of self-motivation, it made some sense. Back when I was teaching elementary school band, there was a requirement to keep up with credits in your field to retain your license. So when I was approaching renewal, I picked the band repair class from VanderCook, figuring it’d be manageable considering my previous jobs. Plus, I didn’t expect a lot of essay work. It was a pretty good class. On day one, I found myself working ahead of the class so much that the instructor asked me where I worked as