Piano Tuner
He played more at Carnegie Hall than anyone, usually without any audience.
FAMILY BACKGROUND
FM’s father was a postal worker; his mother was a homemaker.
His parents were dedicated to their respective occupations, which was an indirect influence on FM, who received no direct recommendations for an adult career, though his parents did appreciate – and never discouraged – FM’s interest in music.
CHILDHOOD THOUGHTS OF AN ADULT CAREER
FM’s first choice to play music involved an instrument difficult to learn: the viola. From there, it was an easy transition to play the violin and later, the mandolin in dance bands.
CAREER CHALLENGE: PHYSICAL INJURY FORCES CHANGE
Tendonitis in his fingers forced FM to give up performing any music while only in his twenties. But, he was still interested in pursuing a career in music, so he answered an ad from a piano manufacturer and was hired as an apprentice piano maker.
WITHOUT AN EMPLOYMENT CONTRACT, NO JOB IS A LONG COMMITMENT
While FM initially thought of himself as involved in the music industry by helping to build pianos, he realized that his job didn’t let him focus on listening to or playing music as part of his job duties. So, FM answered an ad from the Steinway Company (Editor’s note – Steinway is one of the leading names – if not the most famous name – of pianos used by the most highly regarded, classical pianists.) and was hired as a ‘piano technician’ – a fancy term for a piano tuner.
CONCERT TECHNICIAN
FM soon proved himself to be a capable, hard worker so Steinway promoted him to serve as the Assistant to the Chief Concert Technician. As a team, they were responsible for making sure that the Steinway pianos were ready for peak performance by the star pianists who would play them in the major concert halls across the country, including New York City’s famous Carnegie Hall.
When his boss retired, FM was appointed as the Chief Concert Technician.
CHALLENGE: UNAPPRECIATED INITIATIVE
One of the classical pianist stars at the time was Arthur Rubenstein. Before a concert, FM tuned the Steinway piano just before the concert and proudly informed Mr. Rubenstein that he had also cleaned its ivory keys. Unfortunately, Mr. Rubenstein was not only unimpressed, he was upset, informing FM: “Young man, you didn’t know but no one ever cleans the keys for me; it makes them too slippery!”
RIGHTING A WRONG ACHIEVES AT LEAST AUDIENCE APPRECIATION
As soon as Mr. Rubenstein had concluded his lecture, FM offered no defense but headed deep into the backstage area to search for a solvent to purge the keyboard from any residue of the cleaning solution. The only product he could find, which he thought might possibly work well, was hairspray, to make the keys a bit sticky. By now, the stage lights had been activated to illuminate the piano, in anticipation of Mr. Rubenstein’s slow, entrance walk to his piano bench. But instead of the virtuoso pianist, the audience only saw FM approach the piano keyboard, spray the keys with the obvious hairspray can, wipe the keys individually and gently touch them with one of FM’s fingers, to assess the keys for a reason then unknown to the audience, which rewarded FM’s virtuoso performance with some mild laughter. Finally, he had an audience!
Fortunately, Mr. Rubenstein was pleased to find the keyboard texture satisfactory and apparently never complained to anyone else about the unsolicited cleansing of the piano keys. Had the virtuoso made a complaint, it is likely that FM would have retained his job as Chief Concert Technician since by this stage (pun intended) of his career, FM had well established his credentials as ‘piano tuner for the stars.’
