Stuart News article
“All In The Family” Stuart News article Sunday Dec. 7, 1997 by Shelley Canupp
“Love of Music Bonds Three Generations Of Piano Tuners”
[Note: prices quoted in the article do not reflect current market value]
Some peoples’ eyes bug out when John Brower tells them how much it will cost to restore their grandmother’s old piano. They don’t realize what’s involved.
The average piano has 8,000 parts, some have 11,000. They usually are built from expensive woods. You don’t take one apart or even reglue a bit of loose veneer on one, unless you know what you’re doing.
Brower, 37, knows what he’s doing. He does this for a living. After a brief fling with sales, piano repair and restoration became the love of his life. And it’s a love that spans at least three generations of this Port St. Lucie family.
Pianos were the first thing John Brower ever turned his hand to.
He grew up in New Jersey with his Dad Adolph, a professional piano player and music teacher, mom and siblings.
Adolph Brower’s father was a piano tuner who worked in New York. As a boy Adolph, and his father rode the New York City subways to the homes of piano owners. “I have what they call a natural ear,” Adolph said. At the time, he said, a subway ride cost 5 cents and Morris Brower charged $6 to tune a piano.
“My whole family is musical,” said Adolph, who is 65 and retired, but still playing a little jazz on the ivories. “My mother (Rae) and my brother were both concert pianist.”
By the time they were teenagers, Adolph’s sons John and Frank, were working alongside their father. John played drums in high school, but he eventually turned to the piano. Both boys studies at Tusting Piano Co. in Asbury Park, New Jersey.
Although he’s retired, Adolph regularly plays the piano at Disney’s Vero Beach Resort in Wabaso and at Helga’s Café in Stuart.
His sons runs their own branches of the family business - Frank in New Jersey and John on the Treasure Coast.
John rents warehouse space in Vero Beach to store his work and he’s working out of the family garage in Port St Lucie.
“It keeps the family involved,” John said. His clients range from West Palm Beach to Sebastian. Whatever has to be done to a piano, he does. Stripping and refinishing, restringing instruments, replacing hammers, dampers and pegs, repairing soundboards - you name it.
“Almost any piano can be restored if the owner is willing to pay the price,” he said.
Such famous folk as Peter Nero and the Count Basie Orchestra have paid Brower for his expertise.
He charges $65.00 to tune a piano. The price tag to restore one is much higher: $7,500 to $11,000 to restore a large upright player piano. The same job on a baby grand runs from *$4,000 to $8,000. [All prices quoted are not current market prices.]
Some people hear these prices and say “Gee, I could buy a new piano for that!”
Sometimes they could, other times they couldn’t. New pianos are big-ticket items, as anyone who has recently priced one knows. A new Yamaha or Kawai grand may cost from $8,000 to $9,000. Small uprights cost about $4,500 and even “beginner” pianos go for about $2,500.
It’s not surprising then, that there is a market for reconditioned pianos. In fact, they outsell new ones buy a ratio of 8 to 1, according to “Music Trade” magazine.
Children are notorious for losing interest in music lessons. So, if you have a budding pianist at home but wonder whether he’ll stick with it beyond a year, you’re smart to buy an older, reconditioned instrument rather than an expensive new one that may sit in your house unplayed.
If mother’s old spinet has been gathering dust in a corner, you might want to hire a piano technician to rehabilitate it.
A good piano will last 200 years, if cared for and restored every so often. The Browers have worked on a slew of oldies, including a 1918 Behr Brothers and Co. player piano. They’ve refinished historic pianos such as a 1907 Steinway, as well as Nickelodeons.
Such jobs aren’t necessarily more difficult than reconditioning a standard modern piano. It all depends on the quality of the instrument and the care it received.
Piano re-builders will tell you that newer American instruments are rarely as well-made as those built 50 to 100 years ago.
“Prize pianos are pre-1940’s”, John Brower said. “They sound better as they get older.”
Some new pianos from Asia are of low quality, though they cost $5,000 or $6,000 each, he said. They contain inferior wood, instead of the natural hardwoods of the American-made pianos.
All piano restoration requires four things: technical knowledge, skill, attention to detail and tremendous patience.
Consider Baby Grands. These are grand pianos that measure less than 5 feet 5 inches from back to front. They’ve become popular in recent years. Even people who can’t play buy them to dress up a formal living room.
It takes John Brower six to eight weeks to refinsh a baby grand. If he has to work on its innards as well, it may take longer. He has to know different woods, mahogany, walnut, cherry, oak and birch - how they take finishes. He has to know how to tear down a piano, remove the strings and pins, lift out the 200 pound cast-iron plate to which the strings are attached and repair cracked soundboards.
He must know about grain fillers, sealers, stripping agents, glues and sanding techniques, and he has to breathe all the fumes and sawdust that are generated on every job.
“It’s not clean work,” said John’s wife, Cher. “But, sometimes, it’s like a treasure hunt.”
Cher Brower said the family has found many surprises in pianos. These treasure hunts include coins, stamps, and negatives of old, old photographs.
“And sometimes the wood is a surprise. People paint pianos all sorts of colors, often covering beautiful mahogany or oak wood.”
John Brower said that he had other career options, but he wanted to restore and tune pianos. His 10-year-old son, Jordan, plans to follow in his family’s footsteps. He’s already polishing brass hinges on piano lids and sanding wood components. He eventually will learn everything about refinishing and restoring a piano by working alongside his father.
“It’s in the blood.” John said. “Pianos are our life.”
Three generations -- Adolph, John and Jordan – agree that their love of wood and woodworking, and of things mechanical, keeps them going.
John Brower’s daughters, Karissa, 13 and Triana, 7, also get in on the act. They sometimes help sand nicks and scratches on piano lids and legs. All the Brower children play the piano, taking lessons from their grandfather.
Part of John Brower’s pay is the pleasure and gratitude of piano owners when they see a family heirloom restored for the first time or when they sit and play a beloved instrument newly rebuilt.
At first, they just smile and they sit down and play, he said. Then they say, “It’s just like I remember it from Grandma’s house.”