Obviously it's not necessary to play the piano when you're doing touchup, but it makes a difference if you love it. "You'll notice, except when someone's tuning, you'll hear someone stop and play a little run now and then," he said. And everybody sat down to play it afterwards."Ĭornwall, who oversees Pickle's three-year apprentice program and does much of the training on the technical end, said, although musical ability is not a requirement to work there, almost everyone on staff at Pickle is a musician. They stopped to listen to how gorgeous this piano sounded. They weren't listening to me they've heard me play a lot of times.
There was a Petrof just before Christmas that I regulated and tuned, and when I was done, I sat down to play a song, and this one piano was so beautiful in tone, the entire back room stopped and walked over to listen to the piano. "There's a special moment with each piano. "I don't care what I'm doing, if I'm playing or getting dirty and cleaning one, it's just another opportunity to love the instrument. "I tell people-and I really mean this-I love pianos," said Cornwall. We respect them highly."Īsserting that a piano is more than just a piece of furniture, Rick Cornwall, Pickle's service manager and a 25-year veteran in the industry, said that everyone working at Pickle Piano possesses what Cornwall calls a passion for the instrument. "They're our largest dealer in the Chicagoland area, and I think they're recognized as one of the better companies, one of the more trustworthy companies. "They're more of a full-service company," agreed Dick Christian, divisional vice president of western sales for Wurlitzer piano based in Loveland, Ohio. There are a lot of dealers in the country who use very high-pressure tactics, use inflated prices and then give huge discounts and so forth, where Pickle Piano offers an extremely good value at a legitimate price." "When the customer goes in to visit their store, they can be assured of not only being treated politely with a lot of respect and without high-pressure tactics but by extremely knowledgeable people.
agent for Hyundai, Bechstein, Feurich and W. They understand everything there is to know about a piano and they're very good at relaying this to their customers," said Jim Nicoll, president of Dundee-based Premier Piano Co., the U.S. "They are an exceptionally reliable company. New or used, the partners' passion for pianos and a desire to educate customers has earned them an admirable reputation and a clientele that Bechteler estimates is about 80 percent word of mouth. Someone can have a great piano for $1,500 to maybe $2,300 or $2,400, but that quality couldn't be duplicated today. they're just so wonderful tonally, and they're 20 to 50 years old. "Old Chickerings, Mason & Hamlins and Steinways. "What we enjoy-the satisfying part-is that we can recondition pianos that are built oftentimes better than a great many new pianos," said Bechteler.