“Exorbitant Charges By Bogus Piano Tuners”

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30715, 2 April 1965, Page 1

“Exorbitant Charges By Bogus Piano Tuners”

Itinerants posing as piano tuners had been charging exorbitant prices for incompetent work, said Mr S. G. Wells, managing director of a Christchurch musical firm, yesterday. “There have been occasions where bogus piano tuners have been going around the West Coast and outlying Canterbury districts. People are paying really exorbitant prices and are not receiving value,” he said. *

As an example, Mr Wells said he examined a piano in a West Coast area which the owner said had been tuned by “some bird who had been down there.” The owner had been charged £ll 10s. “There was no evidence of any work having been done on it,” said Mr Wells. “These itinerant people are not capable of carrying out the work —they are not qualified,” he said. “Unfortunately, at the present time there is no diploma or examination required.” Someone with “sufficient cheek” could pose as a qualified tuner without being detected.

“It would be as well for people to ask a tuner if he had served an apprenticeship with a reliable piano firm.” Mr Wells said that very few people became competent tuners. “It requires a peculiar mixture of a good ear and a mechanical wrist.”

Usually tuning was taught in conjunction with instruction in repairing and regulat-

ing pianos. It took six or seven years to learn the craft and an indefinable period to become an expert. “It’s becoming very difficult today to find skilled tuners,” Mr Wells said.