Josiah Jackson loves music and the beauty in creating it. When he was in his early teens, he was already thinking of how he might have a profession that he was passionate about. He considered the prospect of being a performer; however, the lifestyle did not appeal to him. He wanted to have a home and be able to support a family, if the opportunity came along.

Many want to make their passions their source of income, but either they don’t realize how difficult it is, or they do realize, and they never attempt it. It requires a willingness to take risks and profound courage; traits like these are often lacking in young men today.

Instead of abandoning his love of music, Josiah chose to find a way to make a living with it. Josiah decided to learn to tune, clean, and service pianos.

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To some this might sound like a humble, simple, and easy task to learn. What they do not realize is the incredible amount of expertise, talent, and experience it takes to properly tune and care for a piano. It takes dedication to a craft, and it is an art form in and of itself. I learned from Josiah that there are four times more moving parts in a grand piano than in a car’s engine. To understand that complexity and be able to produce a beautiful and ordered set of sounds requires expertise, training, and the willingness to fail in the pursuit of learning.  

Josiah was not just willing to take on this task of learning; he set the bar high. He sought to learn from the man that he believed to be the best in West Michigan, Lyle Wood. He had to be bold, because the opportunity to learn from Mr. Wood (or any others in this field) did not exist for someone with no training; he had to create the opportunity. While he was still in high school, he reached out and asked if he could shadow Mr. Wood for a day. Many young men today would be afraid to risk the rejection and failure. Not only did he ask to shadow him, but he asked Mr. Wood if he would be willing to apprentice him. Mr. Wood told him no. He told him that too many without any experience had started and given up within a few months. He said that if he had some more experience then maybe he would have considered it.  

Again, most young men today would have heard that and been too discouraged to move on. Josiah’s determination is encouraging. When I asked Josiah about this, he said:

“I was a little discouraged, but not really. It just showed me that I needed to find another way.”  

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Josiah proceeded to teach himself all that he could and attempted to gain an apprenticeship with another leader in the industry, Louis Kiel. Kiel took him on as an apprentice. Josiah quickly learned why Lyle Wood refused him in the first place. The amount of failure that he faced was daunting and would have turned most away to other options. Josiah told me that in his first year, all he wanted to do was quit. He said that his first piano tuning took him 8 hours and the piano sounded worse than when he started. It was demoralizing and embarrassing to say the least. After pushing through his first year or so, he developed the beginnings of the expertise necessary for his craft. He returned to Mr. Wood and asked him again if he would apprentice him. This time he said yes.