The Piano Story of Duncan & Gina Peterson

My wife, Gina, purchased a new Yamaha M450 upright piano in April 2004 from Keith Jorgensen’s Music in Orem, UT. She was then a single masters-degree-holding working woman. I happened to be working for that store during this period of time, so I was sent out to provide the gratis tuning that comes with their new instruments. I had been married since 2000 and was working full-time as a piano technician since 2003.

The first time we met was when I tuned her piano. We both remember this fondly – especially me as she was a lovely woman and a pleasure to talk to. I remember playing some Billy Joel on her piano after finishing the tuning…

But alas, I was a married man, and so I went about my business and there was no contact until September 2006.

I had gotten divorced earlier that year and had vowed not to date for a period of 3 mos, as a personal goal. Toward the end of this 3 month period I was going through my past tuning clients and came across the name Gina Brown. Knowing that I try hard to call people by their proper name, I had written a pronunciation guide in her contact: “Gina like vir-GIN-ia” (versus GEE-na). Kind of out of the ordinary, no?

I also remembered Gina as being particularly attractive, and very pleasant, and knowing that her piano was due for tuning (after all it had been two years!) I gave her a call. There was no answer so I left a voicemail. (Remember back in those days texting was not really a thing??!)

In the meantime a friend of mine, Tina Grajovac (now Starr), felt impressed to introduce me to her boss. So one day we drove together to her workplace, the Missionary Training Center in Provo, UT, and she did just that. When Tina told me her boss’s name, Gina (said GIN-a), it seemed familiar, so I pulled out my pocket PC and sure enough I found her in my contacts realizing that I had just contacted her less than 2 weeks before with no success!

With Tina’s encouragement we called Gina back just then to make the connection. She and I scheduled our first date on Labor Day 2006 where we would go miniature golfing at Cascade Golf Course and then to breakfast at Gandolfo’s on University Ave in Provo.

As they say the rest is history. We got engaged Christmas 2006 and married on April 5th, 2007. I have been the happiest I’ve ever been in my life since meeting this wonderful woman – and it all began by tuning her (now our) Yamaha upright piano!