The South Whidbey Record
"Island Living" Section, A7
Langley, WA
Wed., Dec. 15, 2004
Photo caption: Pianos are a passion for Langley resident Dean Petrich. For over 30 years Petrich has been a piano technician and has been slowly accumulating a collection of around 160 pianos that are currently either at renters' homes, in storage or at his home. From tuning to playing, rebuilding to moving, Petrich knows pianos. (NB: Petrich lives in Freeland, not Langley.)
Dean Petrich lives life one half hour at a time.
Or, at least, that is how it is written in his daily planner. In
that little book is the daily goings-on of not just his own life, which
in itself is a rich tale, but countless others. As a piano technician
for over 30 years, Petrich's own log of life has been in tune with over
3,000 customers, their families, their history and their futures.
As a piano technician, he feels he has a different kind of job requirement.
"My job is half about repairing and tuning pianos
and half about paying attention to the people who play those pianos," he
said.
When Petrich looks at a set of piano keys he sees
more than 88 slender bars. He sees more than ivory grain or faux
plastic lacquer. He sees children growing up in years of piano lessons,
family gatherings and sing-a-longs, generation blood ties and the sad days
when piano owners become arthritic later in life and can no longer play
their favorite song.
Langley resident Dean Petrich owns and operates
Petrich's Piano Shop. To him, pianos are life. They are lives, loves,
joy and tradition. He collects them by the roomful and currently
owns around 160 of his own.
"I get very attached to pianos," he said.
"I'll pull one out of storage or receive one back from a long-time renter
and remember the lives that piano has already lived."
Petrich's career as a piano technician is but one
page in a life filled with countless chapters. Since he was a child
growing up in North Seattle, he has always had a million balls in air at
once and prides himself on not having dropped one.
"I always set a goal and go out and achieve it,"
he said.
There are few pursuits that Petrich hasn't tried.
He began playing the piano in kindergarten. He is a life-long musician,
athlete, writer and entrepreneur. He's knowledgeable in a summer
camp dream list of activities and has a number of businesses that include
his wacky side as "Deano the Clown." Petrich even has an online log
of but a condensed version of what may appear to be a big fish tale of
a life resume.
"Some kids are self-motivated and others have to
be told what to do," he said. "I was intrinsically motivated."
But one of Petrich's greatest passions is pianos
-- their history, how to tune and maintain them, how to rebuild them and,
thanks to a lesson from a 70-something piano technician, Petrich has become
an old pro at moving pianos -- by himself.
"There were times there when I wanted to help him,
because at times he was balancing this piano with one hand, but he told
me not to," Petrich said, describing the time he watched this old man put
a large upright piano onto the back of Petrich's truck single-handedly.
"I was so impressed with what he did that I've been moving pianos by myself
ever since."
Using rollers and a dolly, Petrich day-in and day-out
moves pianos weighing hundreds of pounds. He maneuvers the beasts
through a series of shifts, and at one point holds it by one hand as he
balances it on a corner. Petrich is even writing a book about his
one-man piano moving experieinces.
Turning into a love of pianos
It was actually someone out of tune in his college
choir and a series of run-ins with pianos that brought Petrich to his future
calling. While attending Willamette University in Salem, Oregon,
he sang in the school choir. One day a constantly off-key singer
next to him mentioned that he tuned pianos.
"I figured, if this guy can do it, I definitely
can," he said.
Peaked in fascination of piano tuning, Petrich found
out that his favorite college professor tuned his own piano.
Petrich went to play fiddle at an off-campus barn
party and was intrigued by a piano in a friend's living room. It
was all opened up with a tuning hammer sticking out of the series of wires,
worked half-way up the row. He was amazed to hear his friend had
been working for over two weeks on the tuning, and still wasn't happy with
the sound.
Then one day he witnessed a blind man tuning two
pianos before a big university assembly.
"At first I thought, 'What a lonely job -- an empty
gym with no one to talk to,'" he said. "But now I know how important
quiet can be."
After the series of tuning events, Petrich and a
roommate shook hands and promised that they'd both learn to tune pianos.
He's still tuning -- his friend is a speech therapist.
After college he paged through the phone book and
called piano technicians to ask to be trained. At first his propects
didn't look good. They all questioned why they should take the time
to train him when he'd turn into competition by the time he became skilled.
He finally found one.
A gentelman in Issaquah told him he'd teach Petrich
to tune for the cost of a tuning per lesson, which at the time was around
$25.
"I really had to make a decision because at the
time I only had $75 in the bank and I still had to pay rent, which was
$80," he said.
When he arrived, the piano technician gave him a
20-minute introduction, a book, told him not to come back until he'd studied
certain sections, and collected his $25.
"I felt cheated, but I did it anyway," he said.
At the second lesson, the veteran gave Petrich a
tuning hammer he'd bought his new apprentice with the fee for the first
lesson, and proceeded into a thorough session. The third time Petrich
arrived he learned to repair and completely rebuild a piano.
Out of money, he was left to find a piano to tune
to earn money toward rent. A friend of a friend referred him to a
woman who had a piano in her basement that desperately needed retuning.
"It sounded awful," Petrich said.
After a full day of work, he was only half-way through
the piano's notes. After twenty hours total he called it quits.
He knew his first tuning didn't sound right, but luckily the piano's owner
thought it sounded wonderful.
"I think she felt sorry for me that I'd worked so
long on it," he said. "It was only later I learned that pianos badly
out of tune often require two or three tunings before they come close to
sounding right."
Dedicated to the keys
Petrich began his own business in 1973 and soon
after began attending meetings of the Seattle Piano Technicians Guild.
The guild meets each month for technical training and other shop talk to
keep their skills finely tuned. After learning his own lesson, he
now accepts apprentices.
He remains active with the organization, and has
been to almost every meeting since his first. He's even a past president
and is active in helping to continue the guild's mission of piano education.
"Piano tuners are great philosophers, poets and
thinkers," he said. "We have to be extremely patient."
According to Petrich, if a piano techician is off
by even a 16th of an inch worth of a turn on tuning the first string, all
the others are off and they have to start over. But you might not
figure that out until you're half-way through the piano.
Petrich visits music classrooms to talk about frequency
ratios and show students the inner workings of a piano by taking it apart
and putting it back together again. He's been known to bump into,
walk over and lay on pianos while performing as Deano the Clown -- if there
happens to be a piano nearby.
Sadly, Petrich knows his is a dying profession.
As technology progresses, pianos fade away.
"The piano industry is dropping rapidly," he said.
"People are buying electric synthesizers that play songs with one push
of the button."
The fading past of the piano
In recent years he's seen an increasing number of
people disposing of upright pianos. They are becoming a trashed generation
-- something that Petrich, an eco-conscious and piano-loving person, hates
to see. The piano industry, according to Petrich, is a direct reflection
of the economy.
"People are either buying $20,000 pianos or, on
the opposite end of the spectrum, are renting from me," he said.
Petrich claims the lowest rental rates on the island
at $15 and up. The price includes free repair, tuning and moving.
"I've had people from New York calling me to get
pianos," he said.
Petrich admits his pianos might not always be the
prettiest, but overall function is the prime goal while he slowly but surely
works on the refinishing of the pianos' exteriors.
"I have some really nice pianos, but on most of
them I have focused on taking care of the inside," he said.
With an inventory of around 160 pianos, Dean Petrich
is not sure where he can put many more. There are pianos at local
storage units, in storage at his home and he has already almost filled
a storage unit he recently constructed near his home. He's at the
point where he might have to dispose of some of the less fortunate and
he hates the thought.
"I hate throwing perfectly good pianos into the
dump when they could still be played," he said.
Everything comes in time. The heyday of pianos
appears to be fading, and every day the wear of life is apparent.
Petrich figures if he focused on the task of rebuilding all his pianos,
he'd be at it for nine years without pay. That's two weeks per piano.
But, he said, he's not a workaholic; just smart
about divvying his time. Immediately after obtaining his planner
for the year, he writes in blank time, vacation time and play time.
"Most people do it the other way around and have
to fit in time for themselves," he said. "I always have time."
Photo caption: Dean Petrich prepares to swivel a piano and unload it from a truck and into a storage facility near his Langley home. Petrich's method of moving pianos allows a single person to move a piano weighing hundreds of pounds through a series of pivots and turns.
Photo caption: Dean Petrich has so many pianos he almost doesn't know what to do. His inventory of around 160 pianos si stored at various locations and is packed in like a can of sardines.