About The Maine Piano Man

Frank Baxter (aka Your Maine Piano Man) is a piano tuner, pianist, composer, and recording artist.

He is a professional musician playing for weddings, Inns, Restaurants, Events, Parties, Hotels, ...
He is also the founder of Piano World , the world’s most popular site for all things piano and home of the world famous piano forums. (he sold Piano World in September 2022).

He has been playing piano for over 50 years and tuning pianos for over 40 years, tuning for professional pianists, churches, schools, venues, recording artists, and countless individuals.

He has had the pleasure of visiting/touring Mason & Hamlin, Steinway  NY, Steinway Hamburg, Bosendorfer, Bluthner, Steingraeber, and Estonia Piano Company.
 

Frank has also had the great pleasure of playing at Piano Parties in Italy, Germany, Austria, Estonia, and of course the U.S.

These piano parties were organized through his pianoworld website.

Frank has played at weddings, restaurants, events, and even at a huge Halloween Haunted House fund raiser.
He plays a little of this and a little of that ... Standards, American Songbook, Pop, Rock, Musicals, Broadway, a little ragtime, a touch of classical, and original pieces he has composed.

Ours is a Special Kind of Love is his first professionally recorded original piece.
It is currently available on BandCamp https://frankbaxtermrpianoworld.bandcamp.com/track/ours-is-a-special-kind-of-love

 This is Frank cranking out some tunes in the Estonia piano booth at the NAMM (Music Trade) show...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc1beIfo_Ic 

First piece is the end of one he composed, second one is his take on Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, and the last is Billy Joel's Root Beer Rag.

Please visit https://mainepianoman.com/videos for more examples of Frank playing.

From Frank: 

Piano World first started as All About Pianos! (see picture below), hosted on a now defunct service, originally at tiac.net, then at something like http://pages.prodigy.com/pianos/ (don’t bother clicking, it stopped working years ago). I used to be able to find some of the old pages in archives.

As the site attracted more visitors I found I needed to add new content and new areas. And so it grew.
I’d  like to thank everyone who has been a part of this journey. Some of you  have been here since the beginning, others are new arrivals, and still  others are yet to discover us (but I hope they do).

And now what started as a hobby is how I make my living.

And now I’d like to share a few memories from my journey to today…

Born November 26, 1951
1950’s – realized my Dad could play the piano, really well (even if he was an “iron worker” by trade).
Late 1950’s – early 1960’s, realized I liked some of the 45’s my sister played.
Couldn’t  get to sleep at night because my parents let a local rock (50’s rock)  band practice in our living room. (the drummer went on to work on the  Johnny Carson show).
1960’s – realized girls liked musicians, learned  the piano/keyboard, started a local band with my new friend from the  city, Joey Doringer (amazing guitarist who attended Berklee School of  music, could play anything).
1969 / 1970 – first real band was a clone of The Allman Brothers (two great guitarists, two drummers)
1968/1969  – Started working for Curtis Music Stores (delivering pianos after  school, later learned about pianos from Raymond Curtis (son of the  original owner who opened the store in 1890) and George Cole (graduate  of Bennett Street school).
1970’s – played in rock/blues bands and managed music stores
1980’s opened my own music store
1990’s  – continued playing music and tuning pianos, but also worked for  McGraw-Hill (publisher) and became a web developer and SEO expert.  Started Piano world
2000’s  – continued to develop Piano World, tune pianos, play gigs.

2022 - Sold Piano World! But still tuning pianos, playing gigs, hosting piano parties, and participating in the Piano Forums.

2023 - Moved to Bucksport Maine March 2023, building up my piano tuning client list and picking up gigs playing in the area.

2024 - Playing More, Tuning More, still looking for gigs and tunings.

Some Local Places I've Played:
Crumpet - Bucksport

Performing Arts Center - Bucksport
Black Moon - Ellsworth
H.O.M.E. (fund raiser) - Orland
Your Place (fund raiser) - Ellsworth
Alamoosook Lakeside Inn - Orland

Philips-Strickland House - Portland
Homeport Inn & Tavern - Searsport
The Club Marina & Bar - Stockton Springs

My Music Studio - Bucksport