I’ve been tuning pianos for about 52 years. I’m 67 now, and I started as a self‑taught teenager, almost by accident. We had a piano at home in Prestwich – a very cheap upright from the 1920s, the kind you now see being used as street pianos in Manchester. One day, the elderly tuner we used didn’t do a job I was terribly happy with. Being a kid, I thought: “I can do better than that.”
I went into the city and bought a tuning key from Forsyth’s music shop in Deansgate, borrowed books from Henry Watson Music Library, and taught myself. My parents were supportive – to a point. They said: “If you break it, you’ll have to fix it yourself.”
Tuning the piano took a little while to work out. But I seemed to have a natural ear for what you were supposed to do. I doubt that I tuned it to a professional standard back then, but I got the piano sounding better than it was. My cousins, who were studying at the prestigious Chetham’s School of Music, came over to try it and said: “This piano is alright, it’s sounding good.” This was encouraging.
After that, I put a notice in a newsagents’ window: 25p for a tuning. The customers trickled in. I was a kid from a working‑class background; music was beyond my parents’ experience. Piano tuning was pin money, and it let me buy sheet music and pay for lessons.
