Robert Flowers Piano Technician

A piano tuning is more than just hitting A440.
Robert was concerned to help my piano sound its best in anyway that it could – which included helping me locate some buzzing and a creaky pedal. That build confidence and trust.
Aside from that, Robert is just a great guy, full of advice and ideas, and well worth chatting with if you have the time.

Robert was great! He recently came and tuned my upright piano (it had been at least 10+ years since it’s been tuned). It sounds great now. Robert arrived on time and the price was very close to the estimate he gave me on the phone before the appointment. Would definitely recommend him!

Robert is excellent! Had such a positive experience with him that I can’t recommend him highly enough. He called ahead of time and arrived precisely when he said he would. Scheduling was painless and quick!
I inherited an old upright console that probably hadn’t been tuned in 15 years. Robert took the time to teach me a great deal about my piano and its history. He is a great conversationalist and put me at ease (it’s always a little nerve-​wracking to have a stranger come into your home).
He did a few quick repairs to some of the sticking keys and a pedal, taking the time to explain what he was doing and why such repairs were necessary. The fixes and the tuning brought my piano back to life.
All in all, he’s a cool guy who knows his stuff and is passionate about what he does. He was worth every penny. ¹⁰⁄₁₀.

Robert just finished doing a service on a used 1930s baby grand piano that we bought used off CL. Although it was in good shape, it needed some love after the movers did their disassembly and reassembly in our home.
I called Robert and he was extremely helpful and courteous on the phone. Because my piano needed some parts, we scheduled the appointment two weeks out to make sure he had time to find everything. He was very thorough, even asking me to take pictures and send them to him via email so he could research what I needed. After receiving the photos Robert called me to confirm some things, and then we had a plan of action.
Exactly on the date scheduled Robert showed up, calling me an hour before arrival to make sure it was still ok to come today. He had brought all the parts and spent the entire afternoon working on my piano. He had it in pieces, even took the full key assembly out and more. I was in shock, I had never seen a piano come apart like that. Before I knew it, he had it all back together in perfect working order. My broken pedals working, my stuck keys were fixed, and it’s now perfectly in tune with great intonation.
The whole service, plus parts, was a little more than $ 300. A great price to have an expert technician spend an entire day fixing my baby grand, and that included replacement parts in my home.
Afterward I felt educated, supported, and satisfied with the service. Well worth the wait.

Recently, a friend bestowed upon me (for free!!) her mother’s treasured piano… that had been collecting dust in her garage for the past 5 years. It is in decent condition and appeared to only need a little love and a good tuning. I selected Robert because of Walter’s C’s review – when Robert encouraged him to keep his father’s cigarette burn on one of the keys I knew we’d get along.
From the moment he arrived, it was clear to me that he not only values the physical piano but also the story behind the instrument. We talked a lot about how I can restore the exterior of the piano (and where I can, locally, go to get supplies), the mechanics of the piano, and how to take it apart and put it back together when I do begin to restore. So helpful. The actual tuning was a breeze (though he might say it was a bit more challenging than that).
The price was about $ 200 for everything – quite reasonable considering all the education prior to the actual tuning.
Highly recommend.

Robert is terrific!
I purchased a 50 year old piano in great condition but was horribly out of tune. Had not been tuned in over 20 years.
His schedule was very convenient and accommodating.
Robert knew everything about my piano and had it playing beautifully in no time. He even fixed a couple of minor hammer issues.
I would highly recommend Robert. He is a nice guy, very friendly and highly professional.

This guy was awesome.
I have an old electric piano (Yamaha CP-​70). My family kept it in our living room while I was growing up, and my father who played music would take it with him to gigs. It probably hadn’t been tuned in over 20 years. Over the phone, Robert already knew exactly what type of piano it was and scheduled a time to come over.
He was extremely friendly and courteous, knowledgable and flexible. I work from home and sometimes have to take phone calls… I didn’t think about this, but duh, a piano tuner has to be able to clearly hear the piano without background noise. He was very friendly and understanding about all this.
«Was your dad a smoker?» he asked.
«Uh. how did you know?»
«Cigarette burn,» he said pointing down at one of the keys. I didn’t actually know that’s what that brown mark was.
«If I were you, I’d keep it that way.» He made a coy remark afterward that implied he’d had similar burns on a piano his father had given him, and wished they were still there now that his father had passed on. It was stuff like this, and his stories about Dean Martin drinking non-​alcoholic drinks while performing, that made Robert a real gem. He was nice to the dog, he was nice to me, and he was just a pleasure to have at the house.
Highly recommended. Will definitely be using his services again in the future.

I always manage to get some interesting tidbit of information from contractors while they’re out. Something that struck me with Robert is that my piano was somewhere between the 12,000^th and 13,000^th one that he’s tuned. Tuning a musical instrument is a pretty boolean task, so below speaks more of why I feel that my expectations were exceeded.
1. He answered my initial phone call just to ask if he could call me right back (as he dislikes people being stuck with an answering machine).
2. He scheduled an evening visit at 6:00pm so that I wouldn’t have to leave work early.
3. Although Robert warned that a full or partial pitch-​raise would likely be necessary on my piano [that hadn’t been tuned in a decade], he was honest and informed me that it wasn’t, in fact, necessary on mine.
4. He went back and double-​checked the lower registry when I told him that I thought I heard slight vibrations in a few of those octaves.
5. I wasn’t used to how bright everything seemed to sound when notes and octaves rang true, and he explained the difference between «tone» and «tune».
Robert asked me to play on my newly tuned piano for a few days or a week to get used to it and offered to come back out to adjust hammers or tuning if I wanted him to. Very comforting to be left with that thought, as your fully-​tuned piano may take some getting used to…
*** Update (2÷10÷2010):
All of the recent fluctuations in temperature and the fact that my piano hadn’t been tuned in over a decade caused a certain range in my middle registry to fall flat, so I tried to hire Mr. Flowers to come back after the temperature evened out a bit. I think it says a lot to the type of person that Robert is that he wouldn’t take my money but came back out and serviced the sale at no charge to me. In case it isn’t obvious already, allow me to summarize:
I’m very satisfied.

A thorough, careful tuning at a fair price, with a friendly demeanor. We will use his service again.

Selecting someone to tune your piano can easily be a «shot in the dark» type of situation if you can’t find information on any of the candidates. Robert, however, comes recommended by both Strait Music and the Unilocal community.
I had Robert come tune my piano after about ten years of neglect and a 250 mile ride in the back of a pickup truck. He not only did a great job getting it tuned, but he also showed extra care for the instrument in the time that he took cleaning and adjusting all of the keys. Robert was very willing to explain what he was doing and why he was doing it for each step of the process and was friendly and easy to talk to as well.
After following Robert’s advice on how to clean up my piano and putting in a good afternoon’s work, my instrument looks better than I could have ever imagined possible. It’s a small detail, but it means a lot that he was willing to give me advice and make sure that I understood how to care for the instrument.

Robert did a great job tuning my piano. I had bought it very cheap, and the strings were ridiculously out of tune. He had guessed it hadn’t been tuned in 15 years, but I would have guessed never. He quickly got that thing playing in the right range, and now it sounds beautiful.
Added bonus, got a discount because of a «referral»…which in this case was David M’s review. Awesome!

I was recommended to Robert Flowers for a piano tuning by Capital Music Center on Burnet Road. Robert was extremely knowledgeable about pianos and apparently does more than just tunings but is definitely an excellent piano tuner. He said he regularly does rebuilds, appraisals, as well as tunings. The price was very fair for a superb tuning job on my Yamaha M1A Upright. Robert was also a very nice guy to talk to and answered all the questions I had about my piano. I highly recommend him for piano tuning and will be using him for many years to come.