December 8, 2006
By JUDY MASTERSON JMASTERSON@SCN1.COM

Alice Alviani has always loved the music a piano makes. But it's what's inside the instrument -- 14,000 moving parts -- that captivated the self-professed compulsive "fixer" and eventually led her to her craft.

Alviani and her partner, Mark MacLeod, opened the Family Piano Co. in downtown Waukegan last month. Located in a newly renovated space inside Harbor Place -- the historic Blumberg building at 114 S. Genesee St. -- the store carries four brands of new pianos, including their flagship line the Perzina, an instrument made in East Germany. Both trained piano technicians, Alviani and MacLeod also tune, repair and restore the instrument that helps earn their living.

The store hopes to promote music through schools by offering itself as a free field-trip destination.

The store will loan a Perzina concert grand for use by the Red Rose Children's Choir, which will give a concert at the Genesee Theater on Dec. 10.

The store carries a variety of new grand and vertical pianos including the Perzina, Steinberg, Steigerman and Ebel lines, digital pianos by Sejung, plus refurbished starter pianos and vintage instruments.

The store also buys back pianos, to make upgrading easy.

Six months of weekly lessons are offered free to teens and adults with the purchase of any piano.

"Not many people are interested in piano guts," Alviani said. "But a precisely-adjusted mechanism is crucial. I want what is in the musician's heart to flow magically out of their finger tips and create beautiful music."

Alviani's experience with the piano came to an abrupt halt at age 7, when she became frustrated with the sound she was pounding out from her family's old upright.

"Kids practicing on a keyboard or a worn-out old dead piano can't get through six months of lessons," Alviani said. "They get frustrated. If you're taking piano lessons, you need a good piano."

Alviani and MacLeod share a belief in the power of music. Both came back to the piano and began honing their craft at low points in their lives.

"Mark and I both feel our lives would have been a train wreck -- especially in our teens -- if we didn't have music," Alviani said. "Music is so healing."

It was at a low point about 15 years ago, that Alviani, who briefly co-owned a home repair business, began taking piano lessons at the Jack Benny Center for the Arts in Waukegan. But she still had the bad piano from her childhood and the E by the middle C was making her cringe. She borrowed instructor Richard Schwinn's tuning lever and "isolated the offending E."

"It was pretty obvious what needed tightening," she said.

Both tuners pride themselves on their compulsion for mechanical adjustment, which gives the player more control and expression.

"Our business model includes offering the best service," Alviani said. " We have no commissioned sales people. We do everything ourselves. So if it's slow, we tear apart machines."

MacLeod recently sat in the tall-windowed store, which looks out onto the wooded ravine of the Waukegan River, and patiently worked at leveling a 75-year-old keyboard.

"There are probably more brain surgeons than piano technicians," Alviani said. " Often when we see pianos, tuning is not their worst problem. It's sticky pedals, goofy notes."

The business duo want to use their store and their craft to add to Waukegan's downtown revitalization efforts. They want more children and more families from throughout Lake County to buy pianos and play them.

"People look at a piano as a luxury item," McLeod said. " But it does much more for the intellect, character and well being than any X-Box or Play Station or I-Pod."

"We want to make music fun for families and give them something in common to share and grow with for the rest of their lives," Alviani said. "There's nothing I like better than selling a piano and thinking "This family is really going to love music."