I’ve been selfish, like the average man. Probably just thought of myself. Takin’ it easy, havin’ a good time, eat and sleep. There are so few men that have been really good, I can’t name ’em. My work’s important to me, but it’s such a little thing. It’s not important to the world.
Ms. JOHNSON:
Of course it is, Nino. You’re very important. How many times have you corrected the doctor on things he’s written? As far as this store is concerned, you’re more than important. (To the others) People love him. He has a terrific following. They bring their babies in, they bring their grandchildren in to meet him.
JEFF:
Seventy percent of the people come in here because of Nino.
I don’t know about that. Look around—at the people who do great things for humanity.
Ms. JOHNSON:
Oh Nino, you do something for humanity every day you stand there.
(Abashed, he looks heavenward.) Oh listen to that, will ya? Oh my gosh. Jeez.
POSTSCRIPT:
There was talk of an old colleague who has since died. He was the strict one. “Some of our worst arguments was on account of me not being strict enough. Somebody’d come in and say, ‘I can’t sleep tonight.’ He wouldn’t give ’em anything unless they had it in writing. They’d walk around the block and come back to me. I’d say, ‘I know you, you’re solid. Oh sure, here’s one or two.’ I would take a chance on humanity. I don’t think that’s a sin.”
EUGENE RUSSELL
He is occasionally seen on the streets of the city, walking or on a bicycle. What distinguishes him, aside from his casual work clothes, is a wide belt, from which hangs a case containing the tools of his trade—pliers, wire cutters, and scrapers of various kinds. He is a piano tuner and has been at it professionally for fifteen years.
“I am a piano technician. He is a dedicated piano tuner.
(
Laughs.
)
Piano tuning is not really business. It’s a dedication. There’s such a thing as piano tuning, piano rebuilding, and antique restoration. There’s such a thing as scale designing and engineering, to produce the highest sound quality possible. I’m in all of this and I enjoy every second of it.
“I was a musician for many years, a jazz clarinetist. Played a lot of Dixieland. Every piano I came to was just a little bit unsatisfactory to work with. I’ve been tuning since I was fourteen years old, more to satisfy the aesthetic part of playing than actually commercializing on it.”
His wife Natalie joins in the conversation.
EUGENE: Every day is different. I work Saturdays and Sundays sometimes. Monday I’m tuning a piano for a record company that had to be done before nine ’. When I finish that, I go to another company and do at least four pianos. During that day there’s a couple of harpsichords mixed in. In the meantime, I’ll check with my wife, who stands near the phone. I might see a fill-in sometime in-between. By the time I get through it’s pretty dark.
I’ve been known to go entirely asleep and continue to tune the piano —and no one would know. (Laughs.) If I’m working on some good Steinways, my day goes so fast I don’t even know where it’s gone. But if I’m working on an uninteresting instrument, just the time to tune it drags miserably. There’s something of a stimulus in good sound.
I had a discussion with another tuner, who is a great guitar man. He said, “Why are we tuners?” I said, “Because we want to hear good sounds.” I went into a young student’s home and rebuilt an old upright, restrung it. It sounded lovely. A week later he wanted to sell the piano. I said, “Why?” He said, “I’ve heard the sound I want to hear.”
It doesn’t have to be a grand. It can be a spinet, it can be an old upright, it can be an antique piano from the late 1700s—maybe a harpsichord. They all have to be tuned as often as possible.
The nature of equal temperament makes it impossible to really put a piano in tune. The system is out of tune with itself. But it’s so close to in tune that it’s compatible. You start off with a basic A-440 and you tune an octave down and then tune a relationship of that combination of tunes. Go up a fifth, down a fourth. Go through a circle of fifths within a given octave. When you get that to balance out in fourths and fifths, you take it in thirds, in sixths—so that it’s balanced. Then you go out in the rest of the octaves and tune the rest of the piano. All you have to be able to do is count beats.
NATALIE: It’s an electronic thing now. Anyone in the world can tune a piano with it. You can actually have a tin ear like a night club boss. I have no ear at all, but with one of these electronic devices, I could tune a piano.
EUGENE: It’s an assist, but there’s no saving of time. You get to a point where you depend on it like a crutch. Somebody using it for a long time may think it’s valuable.
I don’t think anyone can teach you to tune a piano. I’d say practice more than training. You go in, you get your feet wet, and you just practice, practice and practice until it becomes a natural thing with you.
NATALIE: Gene has one of these extraordinary ears. It’s as close to absolute pitch as I think any human ear can be. Any sensible boy can really learn to tune contemporary instruments, but very few people have learned to do what Gene does. We know of only three other technicians in the country who do what he does with antique instruments, and two of them are retired. Sometimes he has to make the machinery, make the tools. He’s worked on virginals and very, very early harpsichords. It’s really a lost art. It doesn’t seem to be the thing that attracts young men. Gene has had a series of apprentices, but they lack patience.
EUGENE: There are fewer younger men in tuning because you don’t make money fast enough in the beginning. Most people in it are musicians, who are having a hard time and are looking for something in their idle time. There’s as much piano tuning as there ever was. It’s strange, but during a recession or depression, the piano tuning business goes ahead. People have more leisure time and they want to develop their artistic capabilities. And they want their pianos tuned. A piano can last for several generations if it’s properly cared for. It isn’t like a car that becomes obsolete next year. It’s possible for a piano to keep going for two hundred years. Old people are going into things they know are ageless. Most of the older musicians are going into piano tuning because you can make a living at the age of a hundred. In fact, the older you get, the mellower.
NATALIE: He doesn’t mind a bit when he’s called a piano tuner. But little kids are very status-minded. When people say Billy’s father tunes pianos, my child wants to go up and kick them. Almost anybody’s father, if he has normal intelligence, could tune a piano. But no one can do what Gene does. We’re terribly proud of him. My child is very clear and precise about the nature of his daddy’s work. We think that’s rather nice, too. I had no, idea until I was a teen-ager just precisely what my daddy went off on a train to do every day. Presumably it was legal. (Laughs.) That was all I knew. But Billy knows and he’s proud.
EUGENE: It’s immaterial to me what I’m called. If anyone wishes to call me a piano tuner, it’s perfectly all right with me. I am not the slightest bit status conscious.
NATALIE: Oh, but he’s had some very strange experiences with high rises. We’d decided Gene must carry his tools in an attaché case. When he’s gone in for a club date in a dinner jacket to play at someone’s party, he’s treated with great courtesy. But when he walks in with his tool kit, dressed like Doolittle the Dustman (laughs), they look at you and wonder. What is he really?
EUGENE: Oh yes, I have to check through security in some of the high rises. I sign my name and where I’m going and what time I got there, and when I come back through security, I sign out and everything. If I had a business suit on and an attache case, I could go on the elevator directly.
I realize these buildings have to have security, so I forget my personal feelings. Although once in awhile I resent the idea of going down into the basement. Sometimes you have to go to the receiving room and sign in. It wastes so much time. It takes forever to get where you’re going on a service elevator. I have gone to an apartment as a guest on an elevator. But as soon as I have that tool chest in my hand, I have to take the service elevator. It’s the same doorman. Oh, once in a while I get mad . . .
NATALIE : My son and I are buying him an attache case for Christmas. We’re afraid he’ll lose his temper one day and something foul may happen.
“I’ve been stopped by the police and they’ll ask me, ‘What’ve ya got in ’at case?’ And I’ll say, ‘A do-it-yourself burglar kit.’ And they‘ll say, ’Dump your case out.’ ” I had this metal cylindrical tube, which I keep blueprints in. They actually stood fifteen feet away with drawn guns while I took the cap off to show them there was nothing in it.
(
Laughs.
)
“I walk along with my work clothes, with my tool chest. They’ll pull up. ‘Whatcha got inna case?’ ‘Tools.’ ‘What kind of tools?’ ‘Working tools. They’re for my business.’ They don’t ask you what your business is. They want to see your tools. After I show them the tools, they’ll say, ‘What business are you in?’ ‘I’m a piano technician.’ ‘Are ya sure?’ ‘Yes, I’m sure.’ ‘Where do you live?’ ‘Up the street.’ ‘Show us where ya live.’ I brought them over and they had me dump all my tools out on the lawn. They looked it over very carefully and they said, ‘I think you’d better come down to the station.’ ‘I don’t think I’d better.’ ‘You could very easily break into houses with ‘these.’ ‘I know that, but I never have and
!
I have no reason to break in a house. These are legitimate tools for a legitimate business, which keeps me going very nicely.’ ‘You show us where you live.’ So they ring the buzzer and they holler, ‘Does Eugene Russell live here?’ ‘Yes, he lives here.’ ‘We were just checking out.’ And good-by. I knew it was a routine checkout so it didn’t bother me. There was no reason to be angry.”
EUGENE: It’s a competitive business. If you’ve got a plum and some other technician wants it, he’ll go after it. I can’t do that. There’s plenty for everybody. I try to keep my fee to at least ten dollars an hour. Somebody who’s been a customer of mine for many years asks, “How much do you want?” I always say, “You know.” They look at what the check was before and that’s what they pay.
NATALIE: Gene is terribly modest, which is why I’m being so terribly pushy. There’s a technician we know who has two shops. He would call Gene in to redo the unsatisfactory work he did for his customers. But he’s a marvelous merchant. He’s terrific, an absolute whiz of a businessman. Gene didn’t tell you, but he’s also a dealer on a very small scale. With keyboard instruments, buying and selling them. Right from our home, from the kitchen, I buy them and sell them. It is more cutthroat than you would believe, especially the antique business.
EUGENE: Square grand pianos and things like that. I have a lovely old square grand with an organ built into it, unusual—
NATALIE: I do an awful lot of work just as a piano broker right here in the kitchen. Bill tells me a piano’s for sale and people call him and want to buy them. That phase of the business is exceedingly cutthroat. Oh, frightfully.
When you’re a broker, you don’t take title to the merchandise, you don’t warehouse it, you don’t usually move it. It’s like dealing in securities. And I don’t always collect because I’m not a businessman. We buy old instruments too, and Gene restores them and we sell them. We work in our home. Anywhere, garage . . .
EUGENE: I don’t see any possibility of separating my life from my work.
NATALIE : Because we are—as the French say—of an age, so many people say, “Mrs. Russell, how did you and your husband hit on such a lovely retirement business? What did he do before he retired? Is he a retired army-type?” They think it’s something adorable. What a sweet old-couple to open an antique shop, who’s gotten into this sweet little old-fashioned craft sort of business.
EUGENE: Sort of a hobby, they think. Because it’s so enjoyable. I get a big kick out of it, because there are so many facets. Other people go through a routine. At a certain time, they punch a clock . . . Then they’re through with it and
then
their life begins. With us the piano business is an integral part of our life.
NATALIE: Oh yes, yes, yes. He obviously does it with a great deal of relish and enthusiasm. We have the feeling that millions of people are putting in time at work they don’t especially adore. And they look forward when they retire to opening a little antique business or something else that they will truly delight in. Because that’s the great American fantasy. They say all Americans secretly want to own a night club. I never did. But I’m not very American. I worked in them and so did Gene, and perhaps that’s why. Another myth is that all American girls want to be stewardesses or girl singers. I don’t think that’s true—not if you’ve done either. (Laughs.) But apparently the most middle-class American dream is opening up a dear little antique shop, somewhere safe and pleasant. We know several dealers who live a divine life. They’re moneyed people and it’s a perfectly adorable little hobby for them. They’re never in their shop. You see the same merchandise year after year. Nothing’s moving. If you think of an antique shop as a source of income, you can’t approach it that way. It’s cutthroat—frightfully. It doesn’t mean you have to be crooked to succeed, but there’s a tremendous amount of it. Gene knows the field and he can spot fakes.
(Laughs lightly.) I’m less of a scientist than Gene, less of an engineer. More of a business person, yes. But I rather like it. Frankly, I’ll tell you something. When I retire, if we can ever afford to, I’m sure not going to go into the music business or the antique business. No.