#PIANO TUNER IN MY AREA HOW TO#
They can’t see that our thoughts are aswirl with myriad judgments about where and how to place the 230 strings. Customers hear bong bong bong and see us wiggle the tuning hammer. The author Nancy Burkhalter writes about tuning pianos: “To the casual observer, piano tuning must seem mysterious. There are about 37 moving parts in each key of a grand piano, each moving part playing a significant part in making a perfect sound. While tuning pianos does not require piano performance skills, it does help to find enjoyment in tinkering with mechanical parts. However, this is not always true Guthrie confesses to knowing only two songs that he can play on the piano: Chopin’s Prelude in C Minor and Music Box Dancer, by Frank Mills, written in the late 1970s. He chose piano tuning and the Music Department hired Greg Young to replace him Young is still here at MSU and is also a renowned clarinetist.Ī common perception is that piano tuners are great piano players. Within a few years, Guthrie had built up so many clients that he had to choose between teaching music or tuning pianos. They became friends, and Graff taught Guthrie how to take care of pianos as well, and in short order Guthrie had his own sideline business as a piano technician. One of Guthrie’s colleagues in the music department, Ed Graff, had a side-job of tuning pianos for the town. His next stop was Bozeman, where he was hired by Creech Reynolds, MSU Music Department chair at the time, to replace an ailing professor. After getting his Master’s degree from Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio, where he was also trained as a clarinetist, Guthrie returned to Montana and became a public school music teacher for three years in Sunburst, Montana (nine miles south of Canada). Guthrie has been tuning and repairing pianos for 47 years. Just another day in the life of the piano tuner around here.” It was amazing how far that last 45 feet was to my van.
Knowing this, I forced myself to calmly keep walking to my van. About 45 feet from the car, I suddenly saw a huge grizzly bear foraging on apple trees only about 80 feet away! What should I do? I knew if a person runs from a bear, the running can trigger a reflexive ‘chase and kill’ action from the bear, and he’d easily catch me. After completing the tuning, I packed my tools, left the house, walked down the front walk heading for my van. When I arrived to tune his piano, other cars were in the driveway, so I parked about 90 feet from the front door. Guthrie related an “It could only happen here” story to me recently, as an anecdote to what makes tuning pianos special, especially around the Bozeman area: “One of my clients owns a nice 7-foot Schimmel grand piano and lives only about one-half mile beyond the Yellowstone National Park boundaries. Guthrie has proven beyond doubt his credentials in earning this high award. The Piano Technicians Guild’s Hall of Fame Award is given out to only 2 people each year who have shared their talents, time and loyalty with the piano technician’s profession and demonstrate significant long-term dedication to the causes, ideals, and purposes of the guild, along with outstanding contributions to and implementation of ideas, programs, and support, resulting in improvement to the piano industry as a whole. Guthrie has braved the unusual elements of piano tuning around Bozeman and the Greater Yellowstone area for 47 years, including run-ins with wildlife, winter driving conditions, unusual piano locations – including January outdoor piano concerts with Steinway Grand Pianos, and through these years has earned an international reputation of excellence and service towards fellow technicians around the world. Ward Guthrie of Bozeman has just won a national award for his piano tuning work: a “Hall of Fame” award from the national organization known as the Piano Technicians Guild (PTG). But how do we get and keep these instruments in perfect working order? Piano technicians are the key.
And we expect them to be in performance-quality anytime we see one and remember some music phrase from our youth. Yet pianos are the entry point to all music for most of us.
Pianos are usually taken for granted by most of us they sit in the neglected corners of public rooms gathering dust or against the wall in Grandma’s house serving as a repository of family photos, the ivory keys faded and slow to return.
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