DUBUQUE, Iowa (AP) - Tone is the essence of sound; it is the heart of the piano. Good tone, like a good heart, makes it possible to create beautiful music.
Dubuque native Gilbert “Gib” Crippes doesn’t have a musical background or play an instrument, but he’s been working with pianos since he was in seventh grade, the Dubuque Telegraph Herald (https://bit.ly/1qrFqDL ) reported.
“It’s been my livelihood ever since then,” Crippes said. “It’s been good to me for 65 years.”
After he graduated from Dubuque Senior High School in 1948 and had a brief stint at John Deere upon the insistence of his father, Crippes worked for Maurice Renier at Renier’s Music Store in downtown Dubuque.
He stayed with Renier’s for 47 years and did everything from delivering and selling instruments to repairing and tuning pianos within an 80-mile radius of Dubuque.
“What I did at that time was work for all the teachers that I could find in the area,” Crippes said. “I would tune their pianos for nothing, and they would give us prospects; they would feed us (business) that way… I would do them a favor, and they would do the store I worked for a big favor.”
Some of Crippes’ earliest memories of piano tuning were at the one-room schoolhouses in Grant County, Wisconsin.
He recalled how families brought wood, water and other necessities with them to school because there was no heat, electricity or running water - but there always was a piano.
Crippes’ technical and tuning skills allowed him to cross paths with several music legends, especially in the 1950s and early 1960s when big bands and early rock ’n’ roll musicians came through the Dubuque area.
A majority of performances were held at what was billed as the largest ballroom in the Iowa, the Melody Mill, located less than a mile outside of Dubuque.
Crippes contracted with the Melody Mill Ballroom to tune for the bands that booked shows there.
“I’ve tuned for every big band you could think of, Guy Lombardo, Harry James, Lawrence Welk,” Crippes said. “And I’ve tuned pianos for Liberace and Johnny Cash and June (Carter) when they’d come through on a circuit; I did all of those.”
It takes about an hour and a half to tune a piano, and while that and the technique of piano tuning hasn’t changed through the past 65 years, other aspects have evolved.
When Crippes first started tuning in 1948, the majority of pianos were uprights standing 50-60 inches tall with strings running vertically from the bottom of the case to the top.
But 25 years later, hardly any uprights remain due to poor craftsmanship and quality, and today Crippes only tunes about four.
Now Crippes is able to sit down to tune 99 percent of pianos, as contemporary models are 36, 40 and 48 inches high with strings that run horizontal to the length of the pianos.
Another change is when he visits homes these days; he often enters an empty house. It used to be that he’d see customers whenever he went to tune.
He enjoys meeting new people or catching up with old customers, but that doesn’t happen as much anymore.
“Sometimes I get into to homes (to tune a piano) where three or four kids will sit down and play when I’m done … and I like that,” he said.
In recent years, Crippes has come across more pianos that have been sitting in homes for 15 or 20 years without being played or maintained.
This situation usually stems from parents who purchased pianos so their children could learn to play, but when the children grew up and moved away, the pianos stayed behind and were left unused.
But just as exercise helps people to condition their hearts and support a healthy lifestyle, regular use and maintenance will prolong the life of a piano and preserve the tone, the heart of the piano, for many years.
Crippes recommends the average piano owner to tune their piano at least once a year, regardless of whether it’s played or not.
But something else that hasn’t changed is Crippes’ willingness to pass on his piano knowledge and teach tuning skills to those who expressed interest over the years; just as he learned from an experienced tuner when he first started working on pianos in the seventh grade.
He’s done class presentations for teachers whose pianos he tuned and gave lessons to customers with children who wanted to learn how to tune their pianos or other instruments.
Crippes has piano action models to help him demonstrate to customers how a properly tuned piano works.
The piano tuning business remains steady for Crippes between his customer base and their referrals; it’s a process that feeds itself.
“I don’t advertise, because I don’t have to,” Crippes said. And at 85-years-old, Crippes is still going strong today as he continues to provide piano services to individuals, families, churches, seminaries, schools and music halls in Dubuque and the area.
Sister Mary Ellen Winston, director of liturgy at Sinsinawa Mound, says that Crippes is as honest as the day is long.
“He’s a very gentle, knowledgeable person and a very competent tuner,” she said.
She considers Crippes a curator of pianos.
“His greatest concern is to attend to tuning the pianos properly and he always takes time to explain any other work or repair that may need done; he’s a very open and honest fellow.”
Printed on Crippes’ business cards is the phrase “The tuner alone preserves the tone.”
This is quite a large responsibility for one person to take on, but with practically a lifetime of experience, Crippes has more than proven he’s up to the challenge.
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Information from: Telegraph Herald, https://www.thonline.com
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