Another strange question. We often think, wrongly, that a piano tuner is a pianist who has not been able to make a career and has had to make do with the craft of a tuner.
This scenario certainly exists but how can you be a rigorous professional when it is a question of a choice by default. You will remain frustrated all your life and all the more so as the two professions strictly have nothing to do with each other. The two activities need common qualities: rigour, passion, concentration, but a good number of professions call for these qualities. The surgeon, for example, will also need these strong points. I think that the parallel with the doctor or the surgeon would be a better comparison. Indeed the piano is like the human body, it needs to be looked after, taking into account its character, age and history. Your tuner must be the doctor, even the surgeon, in relation to your piano.
We always feel reassured to have a good doctor who knows how to prevent illness and treat it if such is the case. We like to be able to place trust in the doctor who has known us for a long time, who knows our weaknesses and our strengths. I like to look after pianos in the same way, follow them during all their lives so that they keep in good health for as long as possible.
I think that are at least four conditions sine qua non to be a good piano tuner.
First of all, be a very good musician, preferably a pianist:
I say above that the two professions have nothing to do with each other and it is true. A pianist can allow himself to know nothing of the mechanical and technical functions of the piano. The opposite is less clear, how will a tuner understand the expectations of a musician, even an amateur or a beginner, if he has not himself experienced the same difficulties vis-à-vis his instrument and if the vocabulary employed by the musician is not understood by the tuner. To make a comparison, if you are greedy and love chocolate cakes, you don’t necessarily have a talent for making them; on the other hand, how would a pastry cook who does not like cakes and is not greedy, be able to make a good cake and please his customers ?
Then, having gained your knowledge from the great and exalted Masters:
It is about an artisan’s craft which cannot be learnt from books. The transfer of knowledge through an apprenticeship of technical handiwork, corrected and perfected daily, is indispensable. The skills of tuning and repairing pianos are not mastered in a few months, nor even in a few years and if you do not have demanding and uncompromising instructors at your side, you will never acquire the basics of this very complex profession.
By all means obtain a State Diploma:
This does not constitute a panacea, in this profession as in many others, but to have a foundation of theoretical knowledge is always desirable whatever the activity and then you will distance yourself from the self-proclaimed experts who in reality have no solid foundation…
And finally, have many years of experience (fifteen at least):
“Put your work twenty times upon the anvil”
This maxim of Nicolas Boileau ought to be the precept of all piano tuners. Indeed, if a diploma allows an apprenticeship of three years, in reality between five and seven years of work daily, exclusively using the ear, are required in order learn to tune correctly. The ear develops, trains and shapes itself until it hears what no one else hears.
