A local piano tuning mystery is solved

SALT LAKE CITY — This past summer, the Gina Bachauer Piano Foundation had a piano tuning mystery on its hands.

Last May, Kary Billings, executive director of the foundation, installed “Key Changes,” an exhibit of six art pianos on Abravanel Plaza.

Billings knew then the pianos, already at the end of their musical lives, would not last.

“Yeah, this was always meant to be a temporary exhibit,” he said. “We knew these pianos would be exposed to the weather.”

Bees took up residence in one piano and he had to put up a sign saying, “Play at your own risk.”

Unexpectedly, however, one piano, a splashy purple, black and white baby grand remained in tune and playable.

“The strings were staying in tune. And I thought, ‘how is this piano really holding up so well,’” Billings said.

Tuning and repairs

Someone was tuning the piano and making repairs.

“They wondered how the piano was still in tune,” that someone said. “And if they had just magically stumbled across some piano that happened to maintain its tune somehow.”

The mystery remained until an explanation rode up on his bike before a concert on the plaza.

“I met him (Billings) at one of the key changes concerts and I fessed up,” said Steven Mueller, the mystery piano tuner.

Mueller, however, is not a professional piano tuner.

Far from it.

He designs computer chips.

Six years ago, a good friend from high school died. At the funeral, the friend’s sister spoke about how her brother, a guitarist, would take requests from friends and family and then learn the music and play it for them.

“I felt it was such a cool and selfless thing to do,” Mueller said.

“I wanted to do the same.”

Piano lessons

He took piano lessons when he was young and then stopped, but deep down, he said, wanted to play again.

“I wanted to do my own thing and really wanted to be able to improvise and just kind of let out the musical thoughts I had in my head,” he said.

So he started taking lessons.

“It scratches an itch in my brain,” he said.

Mueller, always looking for public pianos to play, found the grand piano on the plaza.

“I try to play whenever I can, especially for an audience,” he said.

While playing the piano, Mueller lamented the fact that it was off-key.

“And some of the folks there (listening to his music), agreed. They wished that someone would come and tune it. I thought ‘that person could be me,’” Mueller said.

He ordered a tuning wrench and other tools, attended “the university of YouTube” and took up a hobby that most people don’t.

“Piano tuning is an art in itself. I mean people study for years to get skilled at this technique,” Billings said.

“It’s not easy. There’s a lot of subtlety in tuning in piano,” Mueller said. “And a lot that can go wrong pretty easily,”

But Mueller knew he could not hurt a piano destined for the landfill, and so patiently taught himself to tune it.

“Amazingly, he kept this piano in pretty playable shape for months,” Billings said.

“It’s not something you would recommend for the amateur,” Billings said, “but he couldn’t hurt it and he is actually doing great things for the piano to keep it alive for just that much longer.”

“He extended the lifespan of a piano that perhaps was destined for the junkyard anyway,” Billings said. “And really I think he did something wonderful to make it that much more enjoyable for others who happen to come by.”