Justas Ducinskas is offering free piano tuning in Prince Albert as he learns the trade. (Photo submitted/Justas Ducinskas)

By Susan McNeil

Music

Move over Billy Joel, there’s a new piano man in town

Mar 22, 2022 | 5:00 PM

With a degree in Jazz Performance and a move from Lithuania to Prince Albert, Justas Ducinskas is now making a foray into piano tuning.

He was visiting with his girlfriend’s grandmother when he noticed that the piano wasn’t in tune.

“I was wondering, why was it so out of tune?” Ducinskas said. “I come to find out that no one really tunes pianos here anymore.”

He had previously tuned one or two pianos in his home country so he thought he could offer the service in the city but as a potential business idea rather than a hobby.

In two months, Ducinskas has tuned over 20 pianos and has developed his skills.

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“I started quite recently but I’ve been learning so much,” said Ducinskas. “I’ve been doing for a lot of people for no charge and practicing lots.”

The average piano has about 240 strings, he explained. With knowledge and some specific tools, he has reduced the length of time it takes him to complete a job.

“I started by tuning each of those strings, one by one. At first, it took a while but then I got it down to two hours to tune all of them in the standard pitch,” said Ducinskas.

Lithuania is situated northeast of Poland and neighbours Poland and Belarus.

When he got to Canada, Ducinskas found more familiarity than he anticipated.

“What’s surprising is that so many Ukrainians live in the province of Saskatchewan, especially in Prince Albert,” he said. “We share lots of the same cuisine, Lithuanians and Ukrainians.

“It felt like home, finding perogies and cabbage rolls and sour cream,” he said.

Canada has 1.4 million people of Ukrainian descent and there are establishments such as a Ukrainian museum in Saskatoon and a heritage village northeast of Edmonton.

At some point, Duzinskas wants to resume doing live performances of his music or an updated alternative form of it and has looked at finding venues in Saskatoon and locally.

He moved to Prince Albert to be with his girlfriend, a city resident for the last decade. They met streaming music on Twitch.

During the pandemic, they both streamed instead because live shows were not possible.

He can be found by searching his name on Facebook or under his stage name of Old Taima on Spotify or YouTube or by searching OT Piano Tuning on Google.

He credits some of his training to Dale Bassingthwaighte, a now-retired piano tuner from Prince Albert.

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susan.mcneil@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @princealbertnow