Notes of a Piano Tuner

by Denele Pitts Campbell

A privileged view of the idiosyncrasies of human nature as the author travels on her daily rounds from city concert halls to one-room churches on dirt roads
-- Where music is the common language of rich and poor, young and old, simple and sophisticated, the piano tuner wrests harmonious performances from glossy nine-foot Steinways, mouse-infested spinets, and battered uprights
-- Ministering to her clientele and their pianos like an old-fashioned country doctor, author Denele Campbell encounters unforgettable personalities, instruments that have seen better days, and the breathtaking hills and narrow valleys of the unspoiled Ozark countryside she travels
-- Music lovers will be enchanted by this quiet book

160 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1997

About the author

Arkansas native Denele Campbell tracks her family’s roots in the state back to the early 1800s and credits this inheritance for her love of homegrown tomatoes and hoot owls late at night. After college and a few years on the West Coast, Campbell and her then-husband settled on a tick-infested Ozark hilltop to raise three children amid organic gardening, milking goats, and preparing for the apocalypse. Since the 1980s when her series of biographical profiles of musicians was published in The Grapevine, Campbell’s interest in Northwest Arkansas and its people has resulted in articles published in the Washington County Historical Society’s quarterly, Flashback, and several books. Good Times is Campbell’s most recent work focusing on local history.

Reviews

[Will Jeffries · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delightful, joy to read. Give's you insights into the day-to-day world of a truly qualified piano tuner/technician.

[Daisy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Don’t waste your money on this book. Boring.

[Lizzie Ashworth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Corinne H. Smith: Very few of us have an inkling of what a piano tuner's duties might entail. Thankfully, Denele Pitts Campbell shares some of her experiences with us in this lovely memoir. "I sometimes see my professional duty as an almost sacred task, a ministration to eternal muses which give music to speak what words cannot say in questions or answers that are never clearly formed." (page 8) Wow! We accompany her on this noble mission as she travels the back roads of Arkansas to get to her customers -- the payers as well as the players. Hers is the kind of job that gets her out and traveling through the landscape, which she seems to enjoy almost as much as the pianos and people she meets along the way. She visits and performs her work at a variety of venues: private homes of all kinds, churches, schools, concert halls. Each has it own unique demands; and to say she has seen a wide variety of keyboards is the ultimate understatement. Still, one woman can only do so much, and Campbell can't create a concert-hall Steinway from a rinkey-tink mouse-house spinet. Issuing death sentences on mistreated instruments -- ones left too long exposed to the elements (dirt floors, barns, mice, snakes (!), extreme humidity, or extreme temperatures) -- is seemingly the toughest part of her job, especially if it means removing the possibility of music from a deserving but impoverished home. And the reader has to wonder: is Campbell of a dying breed, a fading past? As electronics and computers take over our lives, will our need for piano tuners diminish in return? After reading this book, one hopes not.

[Stephanie Pieck · Rating 4 out of 5]

Piano tuners live everywhere, but reading the memoir of one from Arkansas intrigued me. I wasn't disappointed.
The author provides lush descriptions of the natural beauty of the Ozarks, coupled with deft portrayals of the people she has worked for. As a pianist, I know the treasure that is a good tuner. There are those who are skilled and work with instruments with care and precision so that even those repeated tones sound rich and lovely. Then there are the mechanics who treat pianos as machines, hammering away at each key so the pain is terrible for instrument and owner alike.
Just as pianists can tell you plenty of tales about horrible instruments or strange playing arrangements (such as the time there was no bench for the instrument I had to play on, so a child's kitchen play set was substituted--I sat in the sink), tuners have their stories, too. There are two in this book that will remain with me forever, providing secret smiles for years to come.
The author provides enough technical detail so readers can appreciate her craftsmanship, but not too much. This is a delicate balance. I urge anyone who shares their home with a piano to read this book. Then find a tuner to care for your musical companion.

[Denele · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just want to say that the 1- and 2-star ratings on this book are hate acts performed by people who are trying to harm me personally because of my political views on a law under consideration in the Arkansas Senate. These ratings have nothing to do with the book but Goodreads refuses to remove them despite multiple explanations of why they are here.

[Christina Cruz · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not worth my time

[Jaksen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Campbell's strength is in her pure, descriptive writing as she could write the heck out of a patch of bluebells in the snow. (Seriously.) It is obvious she loves the region she comes form, Arkansas, and describes it lovingly and in rich detail. A drive to her newest customer is replete with descriptions of wildlife, shrubs and trees, the road itself. This backdrop leads to her dealings with various customers from all walks of life. As for her interactions with these people, also well-described - you can smell the interiors of their houses, trailers and cabins, also described with meticulous detail.

And if the house is old and falling down, then the people inside, obviously poor, are ill-dressed and probably lesser-educated, etc. However, Campbell deals with them just as honestly as she does the Arkansas landscape. She treats the poorest customer as fairly and openly as she does the wealthiest. I found it interesting that when she makes a wrong assumption - that a wealthy woman is necessarily cool and detached but turns out to be warm and friendly - that she admits to her own prejudices. (She makes a lot of assumptions about people based on their circumstances, as do we all, yet admits freely when those assumptions aren't quite correct.) She's also compassionate, yet realistic, when dealing with customers who wish to restore an old piano which is beyond repair. Campbell feels for her customers, yet deals with them as a professional.

Sentimental in places, and sometimes a little over-descriptive, but an interesting and refreshing read nonetheless, and about a profession and part of the US I knew nothing about until I read this book.

I received a copy of this book through the goodreads giveaway program.