FAQs
- What should the customer know about your pricing (e.g., discounts, fees)?
A typical visit fee is $150.00, which includes providing an overview of the customer's piano, and the requirements of bringing the piano up to snuff. If the piano can then be tuned in a single tuning, the fee will include that. Pianos not serviced in a long time often require additional work. Nothing is done without thorough consultation with the customer.
- What is your typical process for working with a new customer?
Educating them as to the condition and historical nature of their instrument.
- What education and/or training do you have that relates to your work?
Dennie Chambers Bio As a young man, I studied Physics and Math at George Washington University and Literature at Columbia. In 1981, I received my Associates Degree in music, summa cum laude, from the University of Maine, and matriculated to Berklee College in Boston to earn my Bachelor’s. I soon met Dr. Al Sanderson, who was collaborating with Ray Kurzweil to develop digital piano technology, and Tom Sheehan, Boston’s foremost concert piano tuner, and found myself accompanying Tom on tunings to Symphony Hall, the Boston Opera House and the Shubert Theatre to tune pianos for Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder and the like. By ‘83/ ’84, I was tuning pianos for artists such as Ella Fitzgerald, Liberace, and Count Basie. In 1984, I opened a small piano store and workshop on Haviland Street in the Berklee College community. Tom Sheehan was leaving the piano business to study business at Yale, and I inherited his concert tuning portfolio, including becoming Director of Piano Technology at Berkee College. In 1985, I entered into a service agreement with Berklee to tune and maintain over 200 acoustic pianos, an agreement which remained in force for over two decades. In 1985, I expanded the piano store to a location on Mass Avenue, and in 1994, into a 6000 square foot location on Boylston Street. In order to maintain the Berklee piano fleet, it became necessary to hire technicians, and in order to assure high quality technical service, I developed a training program combining tuning technique with the physics and psychophysics of musical acoustics. The program proved highly successful, and scores of piano technicians launched their careers, including a few who became president of the Piano Technician Guild, others who became master piano rebuilders, and many of whom developed their own private businesses. I have since solidified the program into a technical manual entitled “The Physics and Psychophysics of Piano Temperament.” For a quarter century, I always wondered how I was going to transition out of the business, which had grown to eight or ten employees, and included maintaining the Berklee College fleet, providing concert pianos to venues throughout New England, tuning pianos for artists across the spectrum on stages, theatres, recording studios and clubs, and cultivating a piano business in the far reaching corners of Africa. Well, in 2008, the good Lord took care of that dilemma. I suffered a debilitating back and groin injury, underwent surgery, multiple spinal procedures, and a year of physical therapy. My employees were forced to move on, and I was forced into retirement. Years have passed, and I’ve recovered, vowing never to lift incredibly heavy objects again, accepting the reality that I’m no longer a youngster. But I still have an ardent love for the piano, the technology, and the beautiful acoustic phenomena which render the piano and the piano temperament that which defines pitch for the entire world of western music, even to this day. I am offering piano tuning, regulation, voicing and repair to clients in the North Shore area, and look forward to meeting your piano.