Christopher Brown, RPT: the Action Specialist
In 1973, Chris graduated as a music major from Williams College. Continuing his studies at Berklee College of Music, he took a course in piano technology and was then hired to work on college pianos. At this time, Chris also joined a local rebuilding shop. The traditional five year apprenticeship was completed with two years full-time study at North Bennet Street School under Bill Garlick and David Betts.
In 1982, Chris hung up his shingle in Concord, MA. For three years, he did some rebuilding work in borrowed shopspace but mostly made his living at in-home tuning and repair. Then in 1985, he built a workshop onto his house and resumed rebuilding in earnest.
Restrictions of time and space meant Chris gradually came to specialize in action work. He learned to manipulate the position of knuckles, capstans, whippen heels, and action rails, mitigating the dimensional deviations of modern parts and the greater weight of modern hammers. Chris taught himself the arts of bushing and center-pinning, acquiring the skills to make action friction appropriate and exact. Careful traveling, squaring, and spacing of parts became the norm, even in upright and spinet pianos.
In 2005, Chris moved to Littleton, MA where a converted barn offered twice as much work area, a large office space, and abundant storage. This new shop was set up specifically for the restoration and fitting of actions.
Shortly after this move, Chris founded the first iteration of The Piano Rebuilders with fellow member Mike Morvan. Their concept remains to provide the highest quality rebuilding services by combining independent experts who each specialize in a part of the process.
Chris is a Registered Piano Technician (RPT) in the Boston Chapter of the Piano Technicians Guild. He currently edits the monthly newsletter, News & Notes.
Chris's company Concord Piano LLC designs jigs and fixtures for piano technicians, offers tuning, repair, and appraisal services to the Boston Metro West area, and restores piano actions for the trade nationally. Chris has many years of experience installing Dampp-chaser humidity control systems and starting this summer (2010), Chris and Jude are the New England dealer and installer for the Model LX, the high-resolution reproducing piano system by Live Performance.