Piano Man
CU-Boulder owns more than 100 pianos. Steinway & Sons veteran Ted Mulcahey keeps them in tune.
When Ted Mulcahey arrives on campus for work at 6:30 a.m. each day, all is quiet. He prefers it that way. Silence makes his job easier.
He enters an empty concert hall or practice room, sits at a piano and begins to play.
He always starts with the chromatic scale, listening for the slightest flaw. When he hears it, he pulls the keys from the piano for a closer look.
As CU-Boulder鈥檚 senior piano technician, Mulcahey, 45, can handle any aspect of piano maintenance. It鈥檚 been his work for 20 years, and he鈥檚 seen it all, from Carnegie Hall to Macky Auditorium.
鈥淓ven though I鈥檓 not a musician for a living,鈥 he says, 鈥渕usic is still my life.鈥
Sometimes the fix is just a matter of pinpricking a key鈥檚 felt hammer. Other times it means rebuilding the instrument. When Mulcahey finishes with a piano, he鈥檒l sometimes play a quick tune by Liszt, Chopin or Schubert. Then it鈥檚 on to the next piano.
Mulcahey began studying classical music in 1986, received a piano performance degree from Western Washington University, then taught privately. He didn鈥檛 enjoy it, tried his hand at insurance sales, then worked for a boat dealership. One day he made a snap decision.
鈥淚 missed music,鈥 he says. 鈥淚n the space of 20 minutes, I decided, 鈥業鈥檓 going to be a piano tuner.鈥欌
He hopped on his motorcycle and made for Iowa, where he enrolled in a technical school, earning a diploma in piano tuning and repair. He was hired by a Steinway & Sons dealer in Ohio.
After three months, he found himself at Steinway鈥檚 New York headquarters, working in the company鈥檚 Queens factory and in Steinway Hall in Manhattan.
鈥淚n New York, they stick you in a room that鈥檚 around 10 feet by 8 feet and they have you tune the same piano every day, all day,鈥 Mulcahey says, adding that he tuned the same piano for a little over a month. 鈥淭hey used to say that they would fire you if you got caught using an electronic tuning aid.鈥
His job at Steinway took him into renowned performance spaces. One of nine company concert technicians, he worked in Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center and the Blue Note Jazz Club in Greenwich Village. He met and serviced pianos for famous musicians, including Billy Joel. A photo of him and Alfred Brendel, one of the world鈥檚 greatest living pianists, hangs in his campus office.
Ted Mulcahey tunes the College of Music's three concert pianos daily, including this Steinway.
鈥淣ew York wasn鈥檛 for me,鈥 he says.
Mulcahey returned to the West and, after doing private piano services near Portland, Ore., came to CU in 2013, ready for the vitality of a college community and ample Colorado sunshine.
As an employee of the College of Music, he works on up to six pianos a day. He prioritizes the college鈥檚 three concert pianos, which must be tuned daily, because variations in the weather and amount of use affect their sound. He also focuses on the pianos in the grand piano practice rooms, which take a pounding: Students play them up to 12 hours a day.
Mulcahey鈥檚 relaxed demeanor belies the care and intensity that he brings to his job. He holds himself and others to the same rigorous standards he learned at Steinway.
In New York, they stick you in a room that鈥檚 around 10 feet by 8 feet and they have you tune the same piano every day, all day.
鈥淗e鈥檒l be a hard critic when needed, no punches pulled here,鈥 says Timothy Wirth, Mulcahey鈥檚 former assistant and now head piano technician at the University of Wyoming. 鈥淭he quality of my work is up a notch or four because of [it].鈥
Mulcahey will go anywhere on campus where a piano is about to be put to the test: The music college hosts about 400 concerts a year, and there are 120 pianos on campus, 17 in Macky alone.
His favorite piano on campus, 鈥淣o. 1,鈥 is one of CU鈥檚 four nine-foot Steinways, which cost around $150,000 each for a base model. No. 1 is on the Grusin Music Hall stage, and Mulcahey鈥檚 fondness for it comes from the time he spent rebuilding it from the bottom up for improved sound and performance levels. This included adding new keys, a pinblock, which grips the piano tuning pins, and strings.
Rebuilding pianos is a Mulcahey specialty and takes up most of his time when he鈥檚 not servicing the ones in use. A piano has 12,000 parts, he explains, and they wear out over time and need to be fixed or replaced.
鈥淚t鈥檚 not like a violin where it gets better over time,鈥 he says.
Music is an interest outside work too. Rock groups like Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin dominate his personal playlists, along with folk and jazz musicians such as Patty Griffin, Neil Young, and Gene Harris. Acoustic panels line the walls of his Longmont apartment, and diffusers and tube amps litter the main room. Building stereos is his main hobby.
鈥淚鈥檓 always tweaking,鈥 he says.
This article originally appeared in the Coloradan magazine.