A piano doctor has made it his mission to fix a broken piano at Chicago O’Hare International Airport.
Josiah Jackson is known as the Piano Doctor on YouTube.
He’s a 20-year-old piano tuner in West Michigan who recently cleaned a grand piano sitting near gate C17 at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.
In the video, Jackson says he was 17 when he first discovered the airport piano.
“When I sat down to play, I was so disappointed. This piano sounded terrible, and the keys felt really sticky. At the time, I was 17 years old and I was just starting to learn how to tune and repair pianos, so I made a mental note of it and decided if I was ever flying through that airport again, I would take some time to fix it for free.”
Pretty quickly, Jackson figured out why the piano keys were so sticky.
“The piano was right next to a bar, and someone, or more like 20 people, must have spilled their drink onto the keys down inside the piano.”
Jackson sent a limited toolkit in the mail ahead of time to use no sharp objects at the airport to get the job done.
“Normally a tuning like this takes me at least an hour and a half. This one I had to finish in 45 minutes, otherwise I would miss my flight.”
It took some planning, but Jackson was able to completely restore the instrument inside of an eight hour long layover, cleaning it to nearly pitch perfect.
Now the piano is open to the public again thanks to the doctor.
