Business

My Business and Music

During my many tuning adventures, the question I am asked most often is "How did you happen to get into the piano tuning business?" I usually answer that I have always been in the music business in one way or another, and I like all things mechanical.

Starting at the age of 15, I played guitar in a band called Con Brio, playing rock and country rock until the day I heard a local banjo player named Bob Black, who I later learned had played with The Whites and Bill Monroe. His technical mastery of the instrument inspired me to take up the banjo and soon, with mandolinist Mike Weeks, formed "The Warren County String Ticklers". Our hook was that we played an eclectic mix of everything from traditional bluegrass to jazz, to rock, to classical, to you name it. Coming in with the popularity of country rock in the mid 70's, the band took off with as much work as we could handle, and we were fortunate enough to serve as the opening act for The Byrds, Bonnie Raitt, and George Thorogood. In 1980 we played a series of dates, taped a public TV show and recorded an album with the virtuoso jazz mandolinist Jethro Burns, better known as one half the legendary musical comedy duo "Homer and Jethro".

"The Warren County String Ticklers with special guest Jethro Burns" during taping for a public television series called "Country Music Time" in Champagne, Illinois.

From top left: Dave Bunch, banjo - Mike Weeks, mandolin - Jethro Burns, mandolin - Terry Feldott, guitar - Bob Nible, bass.

As part of a cultural exchange program, the state of Iowa sent us to Yucatan, Mexico to tour the small rural villages, playing a style of music that most had never heard before. Playing "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" among the ancient Mayan ruins was a surreal experience, to say the least.

Album jacket photo

The band the second time around

After the band split up in the mid 80's I played with Bob Cook, an act that could be described as Folk music in overdrive. During this time I also gave banjo and guitar instruction and served as a recording studio musician, laying down banjo tracks for everything from McDonalds commercials to seed corn companies and grocery store fried chicken. My most memorable session was when I was requested by the pork producers to play a banjo arrangement of Bach's Fugue in D minor for a film presentation that parodied the movie "Rollerball", while the camera panned across a large hog arena. Only in Iowa.

After the birth of our first daughter, I decided that I no longer wanted to be out on the road and decided to find a more "respectable" occupation. I decided to take up piano tuning and after a couple of years, to my surprise (and my wife's complete shock), I was tuning full time. As good as business was, I was looking for a way to branch out into other areas of piano work. In March of '93 I took PianoDisc's factory training to become a certified PianoDisc installer and retrofit dealer. Since then I have installed over 100 player systems in just about every type of piano. With the addition of shop space needed for these installation, I was also able to do complete piano rebuilding.

After a long layoff from bluegrass, I joined up with some new friends who just happen to be great musicians to form a new band called Blue Grit. Unfortunately, due to busy lives and conflicting schedules, the band is more off than on.

Blue Grit

Blue Grit Photos