Richard Young started his musical career in the seventies.Early years were spent in a local band with world famous bass player John Deacon of Queen fame.. His playing career has taken him all over the world and included a spell with the touring version of the 60s band ‘Love Affair’with hits like ‘Everlasting Love’ and ‘Rainbow Valley’.Three years were spent playing cabaret on a cruise ship out of Portland Maine USA to Halifax Nova Scotia.After many years of playing in UK,Europe and USA as a professional pianist, In the late 70s Richard studied to become a qualified tuner technician and through the years has built up a substantial client base.
Richard is celebrating 35 years in the piano business this year.From humble beginings as a local piano tuner to a successful business supplying pianos to clients locally and into Europe.Richard says..”Our client base is mainly local but on the piano restoration side our rebuilds and sales have gone as far awide as Isle of Skye, Spain,Jordan and Switzerland.
In 1997,I opened my piano shop in Oadby Leics,selling new and used pianos far and wide.Over the years we have had a few famous people visit the shop such as brothers Ben and Jamie Cullum,both of them superb pianists. Gareth Malone paid a visit when he was in Leicester filming,he wanted to highlight the poor state of pianos in schools and made a short film with myself and him discussing the subject.I get to tune many horrible school pianos.
On one occasion the BBC needed a recording of a piano being tuned for an episode of the radio sit com The Archers. I was approached and the recording was made at the shop in Oadby.I decided to close my shop in 2017 having had 20 years of supplying upright and grand pianos to the area and beyond.Since then I operate from my home in Kings Norton where I concentrate on tuning work to past and new clients and restoration pianos in my fully equiped workshop.Many of my cients have become good friends over the years.
My busy tuning round gets me to all sorts of places.The furthest tuning job I had was near Barcelona in Spain where a client bought a Steinway grand from my Oadby shop and paid me to carry out its first tuning, an all expenses paid 4 day working holiday!
Although the popularity of the piano has decreased somewhat in recent years,due mainly to the popularity and conveniency of the digital market,people will always want to have the 'genuine article' and as long as my hearing stays sharp then no doubt I will be tuning pianos for many years to come.
