Don't try this at home.... unless you have really good insurance.

This is my father, George Chester Ewing III, playing piano and singing on live radio, probably in the 1930s. He became a piano tuner-technician in the 1960s, and taught me much of what I now know about taking care of my favorite instrument. Some of my tools used to live in his toolkit.

This was undoubtedly a good man, and a great musician...
 

I wanted to post some old footage of Jelly Roll Morton, but so far, I haven't found any. So, I'm posting Dick Hyman doing Jelly Roll's signature high speed number, The Fingerbreaker.

  To all my clients from 2015, and, for that matter, to all conscientious acoustic piano owners everywhere: Thank you for owning and caring for a real live piano, with strings and hammers and all the rest. Thank you for understanding the value of music, and for appreciating the miracle machine a piano is. It would be easier and less troublesome, perhaps, to own an electronic keyboard. It would stay in tune and need no adjustment. You could put it in your car. But you would rather have an actual vibrating soundboard in your life, even though it means you must budget for periodic tunings and other maintenance. 
  Thank you for taking care of your pianos. Happy 2016!!!!!!

These fellas slay me...

I think this is really beautiful, folks...

This is a long youtube post of a full concert, but if you've never watched or heard these two geniuses work together, you must make time for at least some of this....

Just stumbles upon this.. Interesting to hear a musician, whose first instrument is not piano, improvise on the piano. 

One of the 20th century's trailblazing piano pioneers at work...

Piano owners:   During the  summer months, I am able to offer a very good price for piano maintenance work other than tuning, such as action regulation or hammer voicing. I do very little tuning in the summer, and therefore have longer time slots available for other important tasks. And, the real bonus is, I wouldn't do regulation or voicing without also tuning the instrument, so my summer prices are quite a bargain, if I do say so myself. Please contact me if you would like to know more...

Gotta go practice again... sheesh...

I only recently learned about this man. Clearly he was an incredible composer and improviser. I'm not sure why he's not more widely known. His playing ranged from simple, gentle and beautiful to wild and maniacal. Listen to this piece.

I actually tried to tune one of these recently...  You don't wanna know how that went...

I've always loved this...

This man was, to my ears, one of the most endearingly lyrical of the great stride pianists. Check him out...

Hello, folks...
   I am publishing this, my first blog post, just simply to announce that there is to be a Ewing Piano Services blog. It will likely be a few weeks before it's fully designed and implemented. When it's up and running, it will include stories and observations from my travels as a piano tuner-technician, as well as short biographies of some lesser-known piano players that populate my personal pantheon of ivory ticklers.
   Thanks for reading this. Over and out for now.