#Piano tuner ct free
And it was he who offered free lessons upon learning that the classically trained Virgie wanted to learn to play jazz. She said it was Hickey who tracked down the baby grand for her when Virgie wanted to trade up from a lesser piano. He's always willing to help someone out." "He's extremely reliable and very professional," said Virgie, the piano teacher whose students were giving the recital, "but I think he's also a very warm and caring person. He made the repairs without mentioning them to the nun who had ushered him in. Sure enough, he found two more keys where the white plastic covering was about to let go. "You will observe one thing: I am very thorough in what I do, and I check everything carefully," he said. Hickey sat down at the keyboard and took a bottle of contact cement from his coat pocket.
Hours before a Christmas recital by 22 youngsters, a loose key had been discovered on the Story & Clark spinet piano in the basement auditorium. One recent afternoon, Hickey drove from his tan ranch house on Andover Road in Windsor Locks to Julia House, a retirement home in Windsor for Catholic nuns, to answer an emergency. Two of Hickey's seven sons - he also has five daughters - have followed him into the trade, with Philip working for Baldwin and Gerald Jr. employed 13 and did all warranty work on Baldwin pianos in Connecticut and Massachusetts. Lodge loaned him a pair of pants to wear home in place of the one the dogs tore.įrom 1978 to 1991, he had a workshop in Cheshire. "I was very young and agile in those days" - upon arriving at the governor's Westport home to tune a piano, he said. He had the dubious honor of being chased up a tree by two dogs owned by former Gov.
#Piano tuner ct movie
He has tuned and serviced pianos for Marvin Hamlisch, Bonnie Raitt, Lynard Skynard and Charlie Daniels, and has gone to the home of Hollywood producer Mike Nichols several times to tune instruments used in the composing of movie scores. He has had Greg Allman of the Allman Brothers Band thank him from the stage and seen jazz great Dave Brubeck tap a key on his grand piano, smile and recognize the artisan who had restored proper resonance to the instrument. ' - it's true in my case."īut his newfound career as a piano tuner and technician opened more doors than Hickey had imagined. The old poem about `for the lack of a nail, a shoe was lost. "To this day, I will occasionally attack that finger as if seeking revenge - I'll scratch at it, pick at it," he said. Hickey still went on to perform both solo and with jazz groups, but his hope of a classical career was ended. By the time he saw a doctor, an operation was required that resulted in nerve damage. He thought little of it until the cut became infected. Then came the day when he was sealing a letter and cut his left index finger on the envelope. "He once told me, `Gerald, you may not become the world's greatest pianist, but if you don't it shall not have been my fault,' " Hickey said, affecting a Polish accent. Hickey remembers the standard set by Professor Leo Podolsky, a friend of Artur Rubenstein. The conservatory, with about 120 students, was to be a springboard to the concert stage. Son of a classically trained violinist, born in Hartford and raised in Bridgeport, he had begun studying piano at age 5 and did not miss a lesson through age 18. Hickey has perfect pitch and a practiced ear that lets him differentiate variations in pitch of half a cycle per second.īut he had quite different aspirations when he enrolled in the Sherwood Conservancy of Music at Northwestern University in 1952. "He keeps his clients on computer, so you don't call him - he calls you when it's time," said Marianne Virgie, a piano teacher in Windsor who has Hickey tune her Kawai baby grand three times a year. "Part of the reason for that is there's not many of us around."Īnother reason, of course, is the loyal following of clients from around the state who rely on Hickey to service their instruments, something he does with precision, pride and clock-like regularity. "This is not a business that allows you to retire," he said with a smile. 1, he plans to start turning over clients to an apprentice. "You scratch your head and say maybe this is what I was meant to be all along."Īfter 40 years of tuning and repairing pianos for the giants of rock, jazz and classical music - as well as for youngsters learning their first C scale - Hickey is moving toward semi-retirement. Why don't you spend the summer with me?' I said, `I can't tune a piano.' He said, `Can you wield a hammer and screwdriver?' and I said, `Yes.' " "He said, `I have more work than I can do.
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