The Blind Mr John Morley of Morley's of Lewisham, Mrs Esm Haily Mr Ian Ms Elizabeth Dawson, consultant archivist to the Royal National Institute for Mr Steve and Mr Chris Cook of Fletcher and Newman Ltd. Opportunity to thank all those who helped me in my research: Professor CyrilĮhrlich Dr Alastair Laurence Mr John Collard Mr Martin Heckscher of
Obscure the agency of working people, the degree to which they contributed byĬonscious efforts, to the making of history. Migrants, or as the data for statistical series: tend to Thompson, the social historian, has written of the:Įconomic historians in which working people are seen as a labour force, as More painstaking research revealed information on pianoĭesigners, builders, salesmen and pianists, but there was still little to beįound on the tuners, and this made me determined to find out what I could aboutĮ.P. There was little on the people behind the instrument. Information on the design, construction, tuning, sale and playing of pianos, Transferred my search to local libraries and the Internet, still to no Who had he been? Where had helived? How had he obtained that job? How had he travelled around? Why had he become a tuner? Had he even been a 'he'?Ĭuriosity piqued, I went home to look up information on piano tuners' lives in What had engaged my attention was the factthat I was tuning this piano one hundred years to the very day in 1892 that'R.W.F.' had carried out that same task.
Become a piano tuner professional#
There was nothing unusual in finding such a date - they are commonly found when tuning and over the courseof fifteen years as a professional tuner I had seen plenty of them. It was while tuning an elderly upright piano that the possibility of electingpiano tuners as a theme for academic study suggested itself to me: I noticed,scrawled on the hammer rest rail of the piano action, the initials and tuning dates of about twenty piano tuners who had worked on this piano over its long life.