Resume' And Qualifications

Over 46 years Service to Professional Performing Musical Artists

Master Professional Tuner :: Ear Trained Steinway & Sons Apprenticeship

Claude P. LaVallée

Expert Piano Tuner Master Technician

Four generations of piano design, engineering, and craftsmanship

Background, Education, and Qualifications

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An Early Age:

My early childhood found me completely immersed in the piano world of my parents and extended family. As Piano makers and technicians for the many piano manufacturers then still in the New York area in the 50's and early 60's. The factory floors of Steinway & Sons, Winter Co., Aeolian, Krakauer Bros.. and the many piano storage warehouses, piano stores, theater orchestra pits, all were my playgrounds. The Broadway stages, of the Great White Way, CBS's The Ed Sullivan Theatre, NBC's Rainbow Room, ABC New York TV studios, Carnage Hall's basement practice rooms and dozens of record company recording studios, and publishing houses, my childhood haunts. The art and sound of a piano in proper tune seams to have been impressed in my mind as an infant. A baby in a factory? and on the concert stage? Well it was the 60's ... Free enterprise took precedence in the American culture. My father, Paul E. LaVallée' was blind and one of the first University trained technicians to work in the piano factories at that time. (Montreal University School of Music "masters in Piano Technology") and was very much in demand as a tuner and technician. Being blind (to father, a minor inconvenience more than a handicap) necessitated a guide and assistant. My mother was the logical choice. And so with me as a babe in arms in 1951... she escorted father, day in and day out, on tour and in New York's theaters, and concert halls on his tuning rounds. He was very much more than a master piano tuner. A magnetic personality drew him in many directions during his long carrier as designer, innovator and pioneer in providing professional tuning and maintenance services to professionals. I do feel his finest direction was ... as a teacher. He taught and mentored countless young people (mostly blind) kids to be successful tuner / technicians and lead productive satisfying lives. He tirelessly served, developed, and gave freely to his profession over his 49 year carrier in America . Notably as Tuning and technician studies project coordinator with The New Jersey State Commission for the Blind in Newark N. J.. I worked alongside him and was immersed in this mix of keyboards, concert halls, tuning lessons everywhere, including our home life. "This baby learned his lessons early".

Apprenticeship years:

On my birthday at the age of nine in 1960 I received my first tuning hammer and assignment. Practice, practice, practice, was the instruction charge. And within, what seams like days now, I was with my almost new tool kit in hand, on the factory floors of Steinway, Krakauer Bros., Aeolian and others. In the rough or "chip tuning" rooms and on the piano assembly lines, every day after school, working side by side with my older relatives and young friends and colleagues.

Mother withdrew from active participation and I became my fathers eyes and guide and primary student. Concentrating on my development as a tuner and service technician was rounded out at "mothers insistence" in an Art School academic education which I still pursue to this day in the form of what you see and read here, on this web site and others. After a while I started to build my own reputation as a highly accurate and durable piano tuner and started my upward development in the keyboard services division of our family enterprises.

My teenage years +

On tour with the tuning and installation crews and having a tutor for my schooling in the ensemble, I worked tours worldwide and year round. Traveling with countless Jazz ensembles, Orchestras, and Symphonies, in our wide ranging circle of work. My expertise of Piano tuning under demanding and stressful conditions was developed. Stressful?... what could be stressful? Tuning to a precise and exacting standard in an environment of a show stage with all the set up noise and sounds..lighting crews, sound checks, 'lights out' darkness, clanging dinner plates and glasses, all are the sounds or terror for the Piano tuner unless the tuner has been trained in the tuning pits of a loud factory. Being put in a tuning room as a chide with 10 or more other "tuning kids", the concentration on my own work was the real lesson.A smart and wise teacher, was the old man!

Adolescent years through Grammar School, high school and college was inexplicably intertwined being a combination of the academic, family building, business and world adventures and endeavors. Technical training, teaching piano technology, business management experience, and Art School training were all part of the mix.

On My Own to homestead in Alaska

After my parents retirement for personal reasons I migrated to Alaska. For 23 years I brought my skills in a host technical and artistic ways to the Alaskan public. And in these years learned, discovered and developed a host of new and exciting skills in the process. A unique combination of wilderness survival entwined with modern urban city life can be had in Alaska. Not a place for the faint of heart or week of spirit is the Arctic. Tuning pianos all over the Arctic regions and world wide. Flying to some of the most remote places on earth to keep the music flowing along with the spirits of the oil well drillers Deadhourse Alaska. Developing several related businesses covering almost the entire State of Alaska and most of North Western Canada In the big city after years in the bush I developed a love for tourism and started a B&B and guesthouse business that continue to this day. For the last 9 years culminating in 2005 I had been a concert tuning, service and piano installation specialist residing in Amsterdam, Netherlands and working exclusively for Cristofori Pianos Amsterdam. I especially enjoyed working with old friends and also meeting new ones. The musicians, technicians, and professionals, that dedicate themselves to a career of making people feel at home and providing great music ...delivering it all live and personal on stage.