A few weeks ago, my husband showed me an obituary of Mr. Melvin Frye.

Melvin first came to tune our piano when our older children were still taking piano lessons. We owned—and still own—a red Yamaha upright piano similar to the one I grew up playing in Japan. Though Melvin was a Steinway specialist, he was willing to tune it because our children’s teacher was his long-time customer.

He used to say that our little piano had pretty decent sound and held the tuning well. We loved the piano, and our children showed their affections to it in unique ways by coloring some keys and carving pictures on its side with rocks (!!).

At some point, he no longer had time to service our piano. Remembering that he always wrote his service date on a hammer, I opened the lid of the piano. He started on June 18, 1993, and the last service date was October 28, 2003. When he first came, our oldest daughter was 7 and was definitely taking piano lessons with her younger sister. By 2003, Both girls and their younger brother have moved onto other instruments. I was mostly practicing at my church, so our little piano was never tuned since then.

Fast forward a couple more years, Melvin came back into my life when he agreed to regularly tune a Steinway grand at our church. He last tuned it in June. It should have been tuned by now but I was procrastinating.

In a recent afternoon I was performing at a monthly improvisation event at my church. I often play with my eyes closed, but something made me look inside the piano. Suddenly the memories of Melvin working on the piano came back, not only tuning but also adjusting hammers with a needle, checking it with flourishing arpeggios and telling me about pianos and pianists he had met. He also loved to listen to me play the newly tuned piano. As I was remembering, I also heard the piano mourn the loss of the loving touch of the piano technician.

Mr. Melvin Frye passed away on March 7, 2016. He was 78 years old. Many pianos and pianists will miss him.