This article appeared in Aberdeen Magazine’s November / December 2024 Issue.

Stuart Davidson brings each piano he works on to its greatest potential with his business SD Piano Tech.

Stuart Davidson grew up around music. Both of his parents taught instrument lessons, and he started playing the piano long before his own formal lessons began.

“I messed up my mom’s pianos as a teen, and my dad thought that tuning pianos would pay for college. It did.”

While attending college at Wichita State University, Davidson completed a five-year apprenticeship with Charles Burbach and practiced tuning on the university’s upright pianos. He also helped Burbach with repair work in his shop.

“I didn’t think I’d stick with it, but it turned out to be a good fit,” he said.

After completing his master’s degree at the University of Houston, Davidson moved to South Dakota in 1974. His business, SD Piano Tech, continues to take him around the state, up into North Dakota, and even back to some old contacts in Kansas.

Davidson’s business offers many services, including piano tuning and repair. He also sells old pianos that he has restored.

“The whole business is about bringing every piano to its greatest potential,” he said. “I try to make every one as good as I can make it.”

Davidson joined the Piano Technicians Guild early on in his training and continues to attend their Annual Convention & Technical Institute. Some of the top people in the industry teach classes, and Davidson said that he learns new things each year.

Some jobs can be completed in a few hours in the client’s home. Other jobs require shop work that can take up to 400 hours to complete.

“There’s something new every day,” Davidson said. Most of his jobs are home visits, but he also services pianos at schools, churches, performance venues, and bars.

The tuning time for each piano can vary. Davidson said that he can get a job done quickly in a crunch, some tunings take a while to complete.“Before a concert, the conductor decided to add another piano during the time between their last rehearsal and the performance. And last week, I spent four hours tuning a piano out in the Hills.”

Davidson said that a properly-tuned piano should last for a long time. Some external factors, like climate, can determine how often a piano needs to be tuned.

“A piano is made of wood,” Davidson said. “It’s alive and it breathes and it swells.”

When he’s not out tuning pianos, Davidson works on repairs in his shop.

While doing repairs, Davidson often makes smaller changes that can help improve the piano’s performance.

“I do more tuning, but repairs are vital too,” he said. “Whether it’s a sluggish key or a disaster like mice, it has to be dealt with. No one wants a piano they can’t use.”

Just like tuning, the time required to repair a piano depends. Smaller repairs, like a stuck key, can be completed in the client’s home in under a day or two. Some pianos have needed major overhauls back in his shop, and Davidson said that some of these projects have taken up to 400 hours to complete.

The tools that are used range from common ones like screwdrivers and pliers to specialized instruments that were created to serve a specific purpose. The design of the pianos themselves hasn’t changed much, but the techniques and materials used to service them have gone through some big developments.

Most pianos are able to be repaired, but Davidson said that there have been a few horror stories over the years.

“I was called to repair a piano that fell out of a truck. There’s not much I can do for that,” Davidson said. “I did find an envelope of cash inside a piano once. Evidently, the previous owners put their life savings in a piano.”

Occasionally, he has to respond to some repair jobs that have been previously mishandled.

“Sometimes people just don’t know,” Davidson said. “It can be like buying a used car. But it’s surprising how people put up with poorly performing pianos when they shouldn’t have to.

The industry has changed since Davidson first started working, but his goal has always remained the same.

“In the 60s, there were a lot more piano players,” he said. “It’s a different kind of business now than it was. Despite the influx of digital pianos, people still play acoustic pianos, and they need good service.”