11/06/2025
🎹 My History With Pianos
(by D. Benyo — DB Music Piano Service)
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2025: Celebrating 38 Years in Piano Service
2025 marks my 38th year of professional piano tuning and technical work — including rebuilding, restoration, action and hammer replacement, restringing, parts replacement, regulation, and voicing.
(I’ve also been moving pianos for nearly 40 years.)
I now have over 2,000 piano-tuning customers across two states and work with most of the major piano manufacturers, providing local service and warranty work.
Since 2014, I’ve been servicing and tuning the Steinway pianos at SKyPAC, preparing them for every musical performance held there. For 13 years, I was also the longest-serving piano technician at Western Kentucky University (WKU), maintaining their Steinways and other piano inventory.
Over the years, I’ve tuned, repaired, regulated, and voiced hundreds of Steinway pianos, along with many other makes, throughout my career.
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How My Piano Technical Career Began
My journey started in 1973 at a piano store in Savannah, Georgia, where I grew up. While teaching beginning guitar there, I met two elderly Russian piano technicians whose job was to restore used pianos.
Fascinated by their work, I began spending Saturdays in the shop learning from them — and that experience sparked a lifelong passion.
After graduating from Armstrong Atlantic University, I attended Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee, where I worked at Burger Music. Mr. Burger was a respected piano technician and rebuilder, known throughout the region for restoring Steinway and other great American pianos such as Chickering, Knabe, Baldwin, and Mason & Hamlin.
(Fun fact: Mr. Burger’s son, Anthony Burger, became an 11-time winner of the “Best Gospel Pianist of the Year” award and performed with both the Kingsmen and the Gaither Gospel Group.)
Mr. Burger taught me the art of tuning, repairing, and rebuilding pianos, and occasionally took me to professional technical seminars, where I deepened my knowledge of piano technology.
As I neared the end of my studies at Lee University, I applied to several graduate schools. In 1981, Dr. Ron Nash, head of the WKU Philosophy Department (my academic field at the time), offered me a scholarship — and that opportunity brought me to Bowling Green, Kentucky.
Although my original goal was to pursue a Ph.D. and teach philosophy, my life took a musical turn when I decided to open a music store called dB Music, located at the corner of Scottsville and Smallhouse Roads.
For more than 20 years, dB Music became southern Kentucky’s leading piano store, selling hundreds of new and used instruments across three states.
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How I Became WKU’s Longest-Serving Piano Technician
In 1994, I was contacted by Dr. John Duff, then head of the WKU Music Department, who had heard about me through my friend David Kelsey, WKU’s guitar professor.
At that time, WKU had a piano tuner who knew tuning but not the finer details of action regulation and adjustment on Steinways. When that tuner left, Dr. Duff offered me the position.
I remained WKU’s piano technician for 13 years, through the tenures of both Dr. Duff and Dr. Mitzi Groom, making me the longest-serving piano technician in WKU history.
Eventually, as my own store (dB Music) grew busier, I stepped down and recommended my colleague Larry Cundiff to take my place.
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My “One Week of Fame”
On January 3, 2003, a Park City Daily News reporter visited WKU’s Recital Hall while I was preparing a Steinway for a concert. They interviewed me for a feature titled “Passion for Pianos Marks Man’s Life,” which appeared on the front page of the paper on January 6, 2003.
A WKU music professor had suggested me to the paper as a local human-interest story — and the rest is history!
Soon afterward, I attended a Steinway seminar at Gist Pianos in Louisville, where technicians from across the region told me they’d seen the same article reprinted in their local papers.
For a week, people recognized me at the mall and even at drive-through windows. It was quite an experience — I truly felt famous for a week! 😄
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Professional Associations
I have had the privilege of working with many respected piano stores and manufacturers:
Gist Pianos — Kentucky’s preeminent Steinway dealer (I service their Steinways in this region)
Steve Kelly, Steinway Gallery Nashville
Steinway Technical Service, Astoria, NY
Ross & Sylvia Miller, Miller Piano Specialists, Nashville (Yamaha, Pearl River, Young Chang)
Don Manino, Kawai
Steve Pearson, Yamaha
Baldwin (until they ceased operations)
Seale Keyworks, Franklin, TN
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Artist Associations
I’ve had the honor of preparing and maintaining pianos for many remarkable musicians and groups, including:
Jeff Reed (Orchestra Kentucky Conductor), Melissa Etheridge, REO Speedwagon, Beegie Adair, Lionel Harris, Keith Emerson (Emerson, Lake & Palmer), Ray Stevens, Sylvia Kersenbaum, Memphis the Musical, Richard Marx, Gleb Ivanov (Russia), Bill Chelf (the only person I’ve met who performed at Woodstock), Wynton Marsalis, and many more.
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I Love Pianos — and the People Who Play Them
After nearly four decades in this profession, I can’t imagine ever retiring. My journey — from Georgia to Kentucky — has been filled with extraordinary people and experiences.
This trade has allowed me not only to do what I was called to do but also to build friendships with countless wonderful people along the way.
I love pianos. I love people. And I’m truly blessed to enjoy both every day of my life.
