History & Objectives

Mc Nabb Music can trace it's roots for more than 20 years. Tom Mc Nabb began this business as a humble beginner piano tuner and repairman in Houston , Texas. While working offshore as a DATA Engineer for Magcobar, he would help an old piano man by the name of Buddy Bowen. After apprenticing for over a year, Mr. Bowen pointed to an action that needed re-felting and said "you want to make $55 for repairing that action." This was the beginning and as was to be the case later, Mr. Bowen had plenty of work as his customers would wait for 5 years for Buddy to do their work. Tom Mc Nabb would consequently learn all the aspects of repair including re-finishing, tuning, regulation, as well as the factory skills of re-building such as pin block replacement, re-stringing, soundboard repair and replacement, hammer re-placement and the like.

After leaving Houston and returning to New Orleans, we opened a small, (and I do mean small) refinishing and repair shop in the garage of Paul Duplantis' house. It was tough to move upright pianos around on a dirt floor! But it got done and eventually moved in a 2 story building on St. Claude Ave. at Desire St. I remember one day looking down over the balcony and an old man was looking up sourly asking if I needed any help. I said sure, you got any experience? His reply was, I been working on pianos for 30 years…….Come on in….Old Joe Beaugez worked for Mc Nabb until he died about 7 years later. What a guy, and what stories (piano) he told, they had to be true, no one could make this stuff up.

We later moved around the city for a few years and , after starting a family with a little cajun woman from Rayne, made our final move back to our home town of Bunkie, La. Since then, we have continued our repair and refinishing operation expanding into Victorian quality refinishing and restoration as well as into a full-line pro-audio and musical instrument store.

Catering to a wide range of customers from the beginner to the professional, we are here for you