Kiel's Music

09/11/2021

This is the last piano that we have rebuilt. It was a year-long process. It’s stood on its side for over 50 years. The lid was blistered and peeling. The key cover and music desk and lyre were missing. It is a 1910, 7’4”, concert grand made by the Chase Bros. Piano Company and made in Muskegon, Michigan.
It has a mahogany veneer. We believe that it is Honduras mahogany. We figured the weight to be about 1400 pounds. Pianos like this are not made anymore. The Chase and Hackley pianos were meant to last for generations. You can see the thickness (4”) of the support system under the piano. The posts of the legs are about 5” in diameter! Each leg system has two casters. The soundboard was restored, a new pin block installed, new strings and new pins, and many other parts were refurbished, restored, or replaced. It now resides in a home in a nearby town. As always it was a labor of love!💕🎶

02/14/2021

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Hello everyone! It’s been awhile since we posted something here. More to follow. We’ve been well and very busy!
Hope you have, too!
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Happy Valentine’s Day!
As humankind shares a love for music may we share a love for each other!
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06/02/2020

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Hello out there! We are open again and will begin tuning in homes this week. Precautions to stay healthy will be taken!

04/14/2020

Oh my! I wrote this a few weeks ago but it didn’t post.

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Due to the COVID-19 shut down and our efforts to help our customers and ourselves stay well we are not tuning pianos until a safer time. If you need to have your piano tuned please call and I will put you on our waiting list.
🎶 231-755-1013 🎶

03/17/2020

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To piano players everywhere,
You should do this regularly but, particularly during this health crisis, clean the keys before and after you play. Spray a cloth with window cleaner (with ammonia is best) and wipe them down. Never spray the keys. Doing so risks the possibility of getting too much moisture between them causing the wood to swell. Clean keys feel better!
Now go play and enjoy!
❤️🎹🎶🎹❤️

01/05/2020

10/18/2019

We recently tuned the antique piano at The Playhouse...check it out!

11/08/2017

A great gift for the holidays, no matter which one or how you celebrate them, is a gift certificate for a piano tuning. If it's been a long time since the piano has been tuned it might require a pitch raise, which is a kind of extended or serious raise in pitch and takes more time, therefore will cost a
little more. Sometimes, depending how far off it is, a second tuning should be done in about a month. We can discuss it when you call. If you can only do the initial cost at least you will have given a great gift and enabled the player to get on the right note. That's what we are all about! Costs are varied, due to degree of tuning and mileage. So give us a call. A tuned piano is do much more enjoyable to play....and you hear!!

09/27/2017

Latest commission: a Chase Bros./Chase Hackley baby grand (yup! made in Muskegon). The strings were removed, the harp was detached and lifted out for cleaning. Lots of old coal dust/oil was removed!!! Then, it was sprayed with gold paint. Next step: clean and refinish the sound board.

08/27/2017

This is a player piano we are "making better"! Enjoy the before and after. The little red straps you see are called bridle straps which holds the hammer action in place. 88 were replaced. Louie has tuned this 3 times to get it to sound like the after. It needs a few more plus the "stack" needs to be reinstalled and then the vacuum kit, and away she will go!

01/14/2017

This is a 1922 Kimball player piano we have been working on. What you see here is the piano with the action showing (looks like a giant typewriter). The other two pictures are a front and back view of what is called the stack. It holds the vacuum hoses. Each hose leads to a tiny hole in the tracker bar (looks something like a harmonica) and the vacuum created by bellows which are pumped, and, in turn, make the keys play. Get all the parts working together, gears, chains, pulleys, hoses, hammers, and a hundred other moving parts, and the piano will play without any hands touching the keys. It's quite amazing and a whole lot if fun! We love bringing life back into any piano but player pianos a particularly joyful!

See the next post for a video of a player that's all put back together.