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Stuart Davidson

Born into a musical family, I never knew not being surrounded by music. My mother taught some 50 piano lessons every week and my dad taught band instrument lessons. My playpen as a baby was under the grand piano. As soon as I could reach the keyboard, I was picking out the tunes I had heard the students playing. Of course I don’t remember but a family story reports that at age four the church organist was visiting and asked if I could play “Old MacDonald”. My reply was “Of course. What key do you want it in?”

Formal piano lessons began early. I don’t know what age. The rule at home was everybody played piano, everybody played a string instrument, other instruments could be played by choice. Not practicing was not an option. I began cello lessons at age nine.

I enjoyed taking mechanical things apart. Putting them back together was a given. I started with alarm clocks, then pendulum clocks. At some point in my early teens my dad suggested that a good way for me to pay for college would be to learn how to tune pianos. We had a very old Baldwin upright piano separate from the teaching studio where there were two other pianos, so I began tinkering and experimenting on the Baldwin with some tools my dad had acquired from the tuner who cared for my mother’s teaching instruments.

As a college freshman at Wichita State University in the fall of 1965, I began an apprenticeship with Charles Burbach. I spent five years working with Mr. Burbach. After the first semester of practice tuning on upright pianos no longer used in practice rooms, I began tuning the pianos in the 53 practice rooms at the WSU. I gained skill and experience not only in tuning but in not being stymied by the trombones, sopranos, and drums in the practice room next door! Besides doing practice room tunings, I helped in Mr. Burbach’s shop with major rebuilding projects that exposed me to the big world of piano work beyond tuning.

I joined the Piano Technicians Guild early on, first as an Apprentice, later as a Registered Tuner-Technician as I passed the exams required for that certification. Attending the annual PTG National Convention and Seminar gave me an education not available anywhere else. World class technicians taught classes on all subjects at all levels. There were always more classes to choose from than I could fit into the available time. That kept me returning, year after year.

After graduating from WSU with an organ performance and cello performance double major, I went to the University of Houston to continue with my organ study. I completed my Master’s degree a year and a half later. It took until the summer of 1974 to find a job. Until I moved to South Dakota to teach piano and organ at Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, I did floor tunings at a large Houston piano dealership.

The teaching position in Mitchell lasted three years and then I moved to Sioux Falls where I worked for a piano dealer and developed a large clientele of private tuning clients, played cello in the South Dakota Symphony, and had a thriving studio of piano and cello students. I was very busy and quite happy.

The Baldwin Piano and Organ Company offered a week-long factory training session from time to time and I was honored to be able to attend in the fall of 1978. Unlike the PTG seminars where the classes can be crowded and the clock must be watched in order to conclude in time to move on to the next class, the factory school was limited to a small number of technicians and we were not hurried through the material in order to meet a tight schedule. The Baldwin company has ceased operations now, but the training they gave me is still very valuable.

One of the first companies to offer specific training for technicians for their pianos was Yamaha. The curriculum was specific to Yamaha, but can be applied to most pianos. The specifications and measurements might be slightly different, but the principals are the same. Also in 1978, I learned a lot at “The Little Red Schoolhouse” as they called their factory school in those days. The instruction was first-class by some of the best technicians on the planet.

I have also received specialized training at the Mason & Hamlin factory. The Wessell, Nickel, and Gross actions are manufactured by the same people who build the majestic Mason & Hamlin pianos. Made of 21st Century materials that offer absolute consistency in response and uniformity in construction, understanding their design and how best to install them in restoration and repair projects is a great help. I use both traditional wood parts and the WNG epoxy/graphite and carbon fiber parts.

I moved to Crocker in 2005 where I enjoyed the night sky and the amazingly quiet neighborhood. Being able to work while hearing the birds sing and the frogs croak without the interruptions of ambulance sirens was pure joy. But after 13 years, the long treks and nearly daily commutes to Aberdeen where I had begun servicing the piano fleet at Northern State University took its toll and moving into Aberdeen became a clear necessity. I miss the night sky and the quiet work environment, but I definitely do not miss the long hours of driving and the need to constantly fill the car’s tank with gasoline.

Over the years, I have developed piano service relationships with people in very diverse places. Because I went to school in Wichita, there are still people there for whom I tune. Several years ago, the technician working for Kansas State University in Manhattan was retiring so I went down to spend a week seeing if that would be a good fit for me. Despite having grown up in Kansas, the August humidity was clearly something I had forgotten and found most uncomfortable! During that week, I also tuned for a few people in the community and through word-of-mouth that few has turned into a great many. The father of a friend in the South Dakota Symphony was doing tuning in Minot, ND and he asked me to come up and help with some things he felt unprepared to tackle. Again, word-of-mouth has developed a small start into a very large client list. The son of a dear Sioux Falls friend took a pastoral position in Bowman, ND and I went out to tune his piano. One piano has grown into another center of activity. I am happy to take care of pianos owned by people living in places where tuners are rare. They deserve and shouldn’t be deprived of good service because they don’t live in a large metropolitan area. I continue to welcome the opportunity to discover new places to work. There are so many pianos, so few tuners!

My goal in piano service is to bring every piano that I work on closer to whatever potential that particular instrument has. Clearly not every piano is destined to grace a concert stage, but every piano was created to provide pleasure to the person playing it. It is a rare piano that cannot be improved beyond tuning. I strive to remember that someone is going to live with that piano for several months or perhaps a year or more before I return to service it again, and I want it to provide joy and satisfaction and not disappointment and frustration. I service every piano as if it were my own and I would be playing on it.