Memo to young people having trouble finding a job: Piano tuning. People who love to play will always find a way to pay for what Matt Guggenheim, who tunes the pianos for the Portland Symphony Orchestra, calls a “necessary luxury.” “They’re like Beethoven. The bombs can be dropping 40 miles away, but what they care about is their music.”

The aspiring piano tuner, however, has to have such a burning desire to pursue his art that he is willing to apprentice long hours for little pay. He must have an attitude, like the aspiring musicians I try to discourage from a professional career, that “nothing is going to stop me.”

“I’m astounded by the fact that I don’t have kids knocking at my door, especially in today’s economy,” said Guggenheim.

“You can learn how to tune a piano (without that drive) but you’ll never make a career out of it.” He himself would not stop doing it even if he became a millionaire overnight.

Guggenheim began his own career many years ago, when his father bought a Wurlitzer piano because it had a beautiful case. “The pin block was dead and it was impossible to tune it.” Young Matt, who was blessed (or cursed) with a good ear and a love of music, couldn’t stand it and went to the garage for a Craftsman socket wrench to try his hand at a well-tempered clavier.

Recognizing his son’s continued interest, the father bought him a tuning wrench, and the rest is history.

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Guggenheim’s school of hard knocks involved formal courses in such piano specialties as regulation, plus extensive apprenticeships in New York and Boston. “I was fortunate enough to find professionals who pulled me through it.”

For the first 20 years, he relied entirely on his ear. Now he also uses a Cybertuner.

“You need both an ear and technology,” he said. “You can’t just rely on a meter. The octaves and the unisons need experience to tune. You have to really hear the overtones. Our hearts and our ears will say yes when the meter says no. The warmth of the sound is very rewarding.”

He tries to tune a piano to suit its owner’s, or player’s, personal style. Jazz musicians, for example, often like a “stretched” treble. “What I love is to read a piano, know what it can be, and try to achieve that at a reasonable price. It’s exciting to watch one come alive.”

From 1900 to the advent of TV, millions of pianos were built, to the point that an estimated one in three homes had one. Now there are well-made pianos virtually everywhere. Guggenheim is continually surprised at the instruments some extremely good musicians put up with when there are alternatives out there. When you find one you like — for tone, action, sound quality and so on — the most important technical question is its tuning stability, he said.

One of the most rewarding things about his work is, “I get to see the families that care. There are a lot of people who still love to play, and want their kids to enjoy it, too. People’s lives are too busy, and it’s easy to get lost in technology.”

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In his shop, where he repairs and rebuilds pianos, Guggenheim has a sign that reads, “Pianos Are Complicated.” Whole books have been written on subjects such as equal temperament, and a piano action is a miracle of mechanical engineering. “It’s fascinating; you think you’ve got it and you don’t. Then you wake up at 2 in the morning thinking, ‘I have to try this and go out in the shop before the idea goes away.’ “

“I don’t think tuning will ever die, as long as there are pianos in the world. There’s always work in the toughest of times. I truly believe this.”

(Note: I asked Matt to tune my piano after the illness of one of the area’s most prominent tuners, Bill McCullough, prevented him from working any longer.)

Christopher Hyde is a writer and musician who lives in Pownal. He can be reached at:

classbeat@netscape.net

 


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