It will be noticed that no mention has thus far been made of women who tuned pianos – either professionally or just for themselves: and it is probable that the reader has thought nothing of the fact. After all, one would not expect to hear of women piano tuners in the Victorian / Edwardian era any more than one would expect to hear of women knife-grinders or conductors – everyone knows women had to go into service if lower class or look pretty until they got married if upper class.
Actually Paula Gillett has researched the subject and found that the Royal Academy of Music taught piano tuning to girls as early as the 1820s. The exclamation which heads this section comes from an article in The Girl’s Own Paper in 1887, cited by Gillett:
Women tuners! Why not? If a blind man can tune a piano … if men without the least education, musically speaking, earn their bread by tuning only, and there are thousands who do, it would be strange indeed if a girl with good sight and some knowledge of music should find the art of tuning impossible of acquirement.
The girl is then advised to obtain an old piano upon which to practise and spend twenty-one shillings on tools – surely if she had twenty-one shillings she would have no need of employment?
The Music Trades Review published a short diatribe in 1891 headed “Tuning Taught in Six Months”, railing against advertisements which claim to turn out professional tuners in miraculously short periods of time:
An eminent tuner at one of the leading London firms has a Vacancy for a Pupil; proficiency and a good situation can be obtained in six months.
A man who can teach tuning and guarantee proficiency in six months must be the depository of some secret not disclosed to ordinary folks … Other advertisements are directed especially to ladies, who with very few exceptions are notoriously incompetent, for physical reasons, to become pianoforte tuners. So far as the trade is concerned, this warning is unnecessary because no manufacturer or dealer in his sense would dream of employing any of these neophytes of six months’ training.
One of the ‘physical reasons’ why women would not be able to tune, apart from the strength of wrist and arm needed, was simply that of height: the Cabinet pianos of the mid 1800s were very tall, with Collard’s cabinet pianos measuring 73˝ inches, even allowing 6 inches or so for the ornate cornice which has to be removed before tuning. This cornice is generally of rosewood and exceedingly heavy, which causes one to wonder how a Victorian woman in restrictive clothing would fare having to lift off such a thing, let alone tune pins at a height of about 6′.
However, some women must have gained employment as tuners despite being ‘notoriously incompetent’ as Gillett mentions that:
the journal of the People’s Palace included a more ambiguous recommendation of piano tuning in its columns, which began by observing … that most women trained in England as piano tuners currently practise their craft in other countries. That women are evidently fitted for this profession is self-evident, and that they are beginning to feel their way, is apparent by the proposed formation of an association for lady tuners. Whether the idea will float or not remains to be seen.
From the research I have carried out, no trace of such an organisation can be found, so regrettably it would appear that even if such an undertaking was initiated, it was not long-lived.
Even T.R. Armitage, the champion of education for the blind who was an open-minded man when it came to educational innovation, never considered tuning as a suitable profession for blind girls: facilities for training tuners at the Royal Normal College remained resolutely reserved for the boys.
Women as tuners were therefore rare, if not unheard of, and of the myriad advertisements in such publications as the Musical Times wherein tuners seek appointments, none was from women. The only advertisements placed by women were advertisements for positions as piano teachers, or on a few occasions, for ‘demonstrators’ in piano shops, where they played the latest sheet music on the latest instruments with a view to selling either.
From: Gill Green MA
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