"It's just a sweet sound," he says, continuing to play a series of chords. "It'll just sing to you when you play."

Though admittedly not a trained musician, Marshall knows pianos.

"It's all I ever done," the 60-year-old said recently, glancing around at the dozens of pianos for sale at Marshall Piano Co., the family business located at Dave Lyle Boulevard and, fittingly, Piano Place.

Marshall has entrenched himself in all things piano for nearly four decades. His grandfather, F. Dewey Sr., started the family business in Rock Hill in 1925. Marshall's father, F. Dewey Jr., took over during World War II.

Originally a furniture and piano business, the store phased out the furniture in the 1970s. Marshall started working for the company full time in 1965. After his father's death in 1998, Marshall and his brother, Wylie, became the co-owners.

The piano-selling business is relatively small, Marshall said, but rewarding. Customers always seem happy and seldom complain. Buying a piano is a happy and exciting time for the customer, he said.

"It's a fun business to be in," Marshall said. "You get up, you can't wait to come to work. You meet nice people."

In addition to selling new pianos, which range in cost from about $3,500 to about $50,000, the store buys, sells and trades used models and does restoration work on older pianos.

"The darn things last 100 years," Marshall said. "A piano's a very durable item."

Customers mostly come from the 50-mile radius around Charlotte, though some pianos have shipped to Virginia and Tennessee. One even went to Las Vegas.

Famous shoppers

A busy day brings six to eight customers to the store. Slower days bring two or three. Some come in just to play. Sheet music sits on top of a few pianos, ready for anyone. Selections range from sacred hymns to the theme from "The Young and the Restless."

Sometimes customers have big names. Marshall said he's sold pianos to NASCAR great Jeff Gordon and Carolina Panthers wide receiver Mushin Muhammad, among others.

Muhammad sent his interior decorator, but Gordon came by the store in person.

"I asked him who's going to play it," Marshall said, recalling Gordon's visit in the mid-1990s. "He said, 'My wife and I are going to learn to play.'"

That plan apparently didn't pan out. Gordon returned to the store a year later.

"He said, 'Have you got one of those pianos that plays itself?'" Marshall recalled with a laugh.

The two worked out a trade, giving Marshall a celebrity piano to put on display.

"I had a good time showing off Jeff Gordon's piano," he said.

Despite occasionally crossing paths with the rich and famous, Marshall sells mostly to parents with children about to start piano lessons. Sales to churches and schools also are common.

Unlike shopping for a car, Marshall said, piano sales come pressure free.

"It's a pretty low-key sale. You can't pressure a piano buyer," he said. "You're selling benefits...touch, response, tone."

Marshall said he tickles the ivory from time to time, but his brother, the tuner and technician, takes a more hands-off approach.

"Never took a piano lesson," Wylie Marshall said. "You work on them all day long, you don't want to go home and sit in front of one."

Still, the longtime relationship between product and seller has not diminished the satisfaction the brothers get from their work.

"If you really enjoy what you do, it's really a blessing," Dewey Marshall said. "I can't think of anything I'd rather do."