History of Piano Tuning – THE TRAINED TUNER’S WORK

The larger London piano houses produced many pianos, all of which needed to be strung, chipped up and then fine-tuned, and at the height of the 1850s and 60s boom there were between 60,000 and 100,000 pianos made in London alone, so a huge number of tunings was required in the factory alone, long before the instruments reached shops, showrooms and homes.

Piano demand was from September/October until just after Christmas, so a large proportion of ‘ordinary’ workers were laid off from the factories around springtime and went into other trades such as building, and returned at the onset of bad weather around September.  The permanent staff consisted of foremen and managers.

Under Morley’s system, pianos were then tuned four times a year under contract, and large numbers were being sold.   Tuners who had left the factory were employed directly by shopkeepers.  Depending on the size of the shop two or three tuners would be taken on: more, if the size of the business warranted it.  Each of these tuners would have tuned between twenty-five and thirty pianos a week, which is roughly the same as a modern-day tuner on a five-day week.   Unlike the modern tuner, however, the tuner in the Victorian age had no car.  Various modes of transport have come to my notice: Mrs Wells, whose father tuned in Lewisham around 1900, remembers pictures of him on a bicycle, sporting a top hat.  Edward Elgar’s father rode a horse, and later used a pony and trap.   The large piano houses whose tuners tended to travel further afield had to make allowances for mode of travel in their tuning charges.   A Broadwoods catalogue of 1905 lists tuning charges as follows, evidently taking into account the time (and money) which travel cost the firm:

To have one piano tuned four times a year: –

• London districts, £1.1.0;

• inner suburban districts, £1.5.0;

• outer suburban districts, £1.11.6;

• country districts – within two miles of a Railway Station, £2.2.0;

• Beyond two miles from a Railway Station … terms on application.
  

A footnote to the page reads:

It is respectfully pointed out that, as tuning contracts can only be carried on by careful organization and strict punctuality, each visit of a tuner, though he may not be allowed to tune the piano, will be charged for, unless sufficient notice to defer the visit be given by customers.

One of Broadwood’s casual tuning books from 1904 lists a claim for 10/6d ‘travelling expenses to Colchester’. (A casual tuning was a tuning which was carried out for a client who did not have a contract with Broadwoods.)   Another claim dated 5th December 1904 lists ‘railway expenses to Hatfield Peveril, 6/2d’.

Broadwoods did carry out their threat to demand payment for calls: the Japan Mail Company was charge 4/6d ‘for fruitless visit to Away House’, on 14th December 1908, and a Miss Dodds objected to paying ‘one tuning charged for three refusals – 7/9d’.

The tuner’s life could on occasion be made difficult by the client – the Music Trades Review cites a case of a London manufacturer who supplied a lady with a grand piano. She complained that it was out of tune and demanded that the tuner return, which he did, but could find no problem with the tuning.  The lady then complained again and the owner of the (unnamed) manufacturer went himself, but again could find nothing wrong with the tuning.  ‘The Lady admitted this fact, adding “It is allright when you play on it, but directly I begin to sing to it, it appears entirely out of tune”.  The reply of the manufacturer is not given to us’.