In Tune with Fred Kahn
I only call him when the situation is dire. Maybe even an emergency. I leave a message on his cell phone and I know he’ll call back within the hour.
“Fred, the D7 broke yesterday. How fast can you get here?” Within the hour he has returned my call and we’ve made an appointment.
Fred Kahn is a piano tuner - an obscure, barely-seen and misunderstood niche that cannot be automated (yet), and has few practitioners. Fred is one of the best. And therefore he’s in demand.
I’ve known Fred for many years, because he began tuning my in-home acoustic pianos when Marsia and I first moved to New Jersey from California some 20 years ago. He was recommended by a jazz pianist I worked with at a corporate gig in Philadelphia (“Call Fred Kahn,” he said, “he tunes for everyone”) and a relationship was born.
It’s always great to see him. He’s knowledgeable, dedicated, and loves his job. He’s been our tuner for two pianos, a Kawai console handed down by my father-in-law, and the current Kawai baby grand that replaced that first one. His technical and artistic sensibilities are state-of-the-art. He is all business once he walks in the door, carrying a bag not unlike what a doctor might have used for a “house call” in a bygone era.
I was practicing this week when the D string in the upper register broke. I called immediately, and 24 hours later Fred was here. We offered him anything he wanted to drink, which he refused (he rarely accepts anything - maybe a glass of water or a cup of coffee on the odd occasion) and he went to work. He had the long steel strings for the notes above Middle C in his car, plus the tools and mechanics to do the job. The lower register, with its wound and coiled wires, would have been much harder to replace and install - those have to be requested and sent for - so “we got lucky” and he was done with the job in less than 2 hours.
He works for everyone: pop stars (“Ben Folds broke a bunch of strings!” he once told me; Billy Joel likes a “loose action;” and “these kids today are so technically gifted in their playing it’s amazing!”), churches, concert halls, the family piano that gets played once a year at a party (Christmas), schools and for teachers. He always mentions his wife and children. He asks about our oldest son - who he mentored for a while because Hank wanted to learn to tune his own piano - and then he’s off to his next job.
Fred Kahn is a treasure. I don’t know his politics, I don’t know his religion, I don’t know his history. I do know he’s accomplished, sincere and a good man. This time of year, at this point in history, when the holiday can be stressful and the world is turning upside down, it is a pleasure to pay for his service. The piano is a technological marvel, with its thousands of moving parts and combination of steel, wood and engineering. It’s as old as time and as hip as your latest hit song on the radio. That there are people like Fred who transcend that, who “make things work,” is a sort of miracle.
Merry Christmas to you and yours. I hope our paths cross in 2016!