George Wendall Muller: Piano man didn't start out that way but became attuned to difficult trade

Strike a key, yank the tuning wrench. Strike a key, yank the tuning wrench. Over and over until the proper tone was achieved. Since each of the 88 keys had two or three strings attached, the process would be repeated more than 200 times.

The boy couldn't fathom what type of person would choose such a monotonous occupation.

It wasn't until adulthood that Muller discovered the job was far from dull. It required precision, patience and meticulous attention to detail. And it was a job on which he built a successful four-decade career in Tucson, tuning, refurbishing and selling pianos at Muller Piano Company.

"He ended up doing all the things he never thought he wanted to do," said one of his three children, Gary Muller, though he never actually learned to play the piano. "Basically all he knew how to do is play scales."

Muller started the company in the back of a dingy warehouse in 1950 and ran the business until a stroke forced him into retirement in 1993. He remained active in retirement, on the golf course, in his church and as part of a prison ministry program until his death April 22 from a brain hemorrhage. He was 83.

Muller, one of four siblings, was born in Elmira, N.Y., but grew up in Fort Wayne. After his junior year of college, where he was a pre-med student, he moved with his parents and younger sister to Tucson. His mother had long suffered from severe asthma and a doctor told her the dry climate would help.

In Tucson, Muller met and courted Mary Jo Hearn. Several years younger than he, Mary Jo was an acquaintance of Muller's younger sister, Joyce, who persuaded her brother to escort Mary Jo to the Tucson High School senior prom. They wed in 1951, after Mary Jo graduated from college in Kansas and returned to Tucson to teach music.

Muller returned to school, attending the University of Arizona for a year, but quit to go to work for Spencer Piano Co., where he learned piano rebuilding, tuning and regulating. He then took a job with a furniture company, learning to repair and refurbish furniture, before opening his own piano shop in space he rented in the back of the furniture store, his son said.

"He was very energetic," co-worker John Strom said. "It was a very crude operation at that time, dirt floors.

"A little bit at a time he'd acquire machinery for rebuilding pianos. He could fix anything."

Muller shared his knowledge with men he hired, training piano tuners and woodworkers, once he opened his own store on East Broadway at Park Avenue. Later, he opened a second store farther east on Broadway that had space for music lessons and recitals. Through the years, the original location also was called Muller Piano & Organ Company and Muller Music Center.

"My dad was such a perfectionist. He always gave his best," daughter Gail Barrios said. "You could take a piece-of-trash piano to him and you wouldn't recognize it when he was finished."

Strom, who married Mary Jo's sister a year after the Mullers wed, worked full time at the piano company for 18 years.

He remembers Muller as a savvy businessman who updated his operation with the times while staying true to his original plan to refurbish and sell pianos.

"He was able to survive all of the ups and downs and the competition," Strom said. "Because of his efforts and his planning, it became a very successful business."

While Muller got his business started, his wife helped support him by teaching choral music classes at area schools. When the business began turning a profit, Mary Jo quit teaching to raise their family and took an active role in her husband's business.

The biggest event of the year for the company was the annual six-hour sale.

Muller locked the doors at 5 p.m. and re-tagged all of the instruments in his shop, slashing prices. Mary Jo always prepared dinner for the staff of 18, plus refreshments for the hundreds of customers who shopped from 6 o'clock until midnight.

"It was like Grand Central Station there. It was fun, lots of fun," Strom said.

Despite an aptitude test Muller took in his teens advising him against going into sales, he enjoyed interacting with customers. He kept his business fresh by continuously adding merchandise and services, and thinking ahead. He loaned grand pianos for recitals. He donated harps to school orchestras. He sold and rented wind and brass instruments to students in school music programs.

Muller gave every customer who was interested a tour of the back shop. If a parent came in with a fidgety child, Muller plied the tot with snacks he stockpiled so the parent could browse.

Muller was a member of the Piano Technicians Guild and named director of the National Association of Music Merchants for three years. As his business grew, Muller was awarded a Steinway piano franchise.

Still, Muller wasn't all about work. He was as adept at relaxing as he was at piano tuning.

He and Mary Jo were active in their church. Muller, Strom and their brother-in-law built a wooden fishing boat that they hauled to Cholla Bay in Puerto Peñasco, Sonora, where the men and their families spent many long weekends fishing, picnicking and swimming.

In the 1970s, Muller became a fan of radio-controlled model boat racing. He joined a local club that met at Lakeside Park on Tucson's East Side. In a 1979 Tucson Citizen article about the hobby, Muller said, "I'm still a kid at heart" before he rowed into the middle of the lake to launch his miniature speedboat.

Muller played golf weekly with Strom both before and after retirement. After selling his piano store, Muller and his wife volunteered with a prison ministry program through church.

"He wanted us really badly to take it over," Barrios said of the piano store. "It was his little empire he built. It was heart-crushing when none of us wanted to take it over."

Muller understood. His children wanted to pursue their own careers.

"He loved his business, but he was also supportive of what we wanted to do," Gary Muller said.

On StarNet: Find a photo gallery of this Life Story at azstarnet.com/slideshows

the series

This feature chronicles the lives of recently deceased Tucsonans. Some were well-known across the community. Others had an impact on a smaller sphere of friends, family and acquaintances. Many of these people led interesting — and sometimes extraordinary — lives with little or no fanfare. Now you'll hear their stories.