by Don Mitchell
From the Editor: Don Mitchell is a piano tuner who has long been a member of the National Federation of the Blind and a staunch advocate for the profession that has made him a good living and can make other blind people a good living as well. Here is what he has to say both about the history of piano tuning and about what he believes to be its future:
One reason I chose to join the National Federation of the Blind is the following short story. I don’t know where it came from so I can’t give credit where credit is due.
A man was once observed walking on an ocean beach. As he walked, once in a while, he would stop and pick something up and throw it out into the ocean. An observer walked until he was able to talk to the man. He saw, on closer observation that the man was picking up stranded starfish cast up on to the beach, and throwing them back into the sea. The question was asked: Why do you throw them back in the water; they will just be thrown back on shore by the waves and the tides; it just doesn’t make any difference. The man stooped again and threw another starfish back into the water and stood up and said, “It makes a difference to that one.”
The NFB is like that man casting starfish back into the sea. If the sea is analogous to the sea of productive life in society then the work and projects of the NFB are the comparison to that man on the beach. The man can also be compared to each of us as members who, in our own ways, work to help our fellow blind humans to stay in the sea of productivity in life and inclusion in the full range of human activities. As hard as we work, blind men and women continue to experience much higher unemployment than the general American population. It is certain that, as hard as we work, prejudice, due to ignorance, still exists. Those of us who believe in the value of continuing the work of the NFB do so because it does make a difference to that one. That one is me and you and thousands of other blind persons who have benefitted by the continuing hard work of Federationists everywhere.
My area of focus has been telling blind people about the career of piano tuning and repair. I started this after joining the NFB in 1994 and beginning to work with the NFB Blind Piano Technicians Division. Later we became a group, and last year the formal work of the Blind Technicians in the Federation ceased because of lack of participation. Because of the size of the piano repair field, our NFB piano technology work was not sustainable. I hate to see this part of our movement relegated only to our new museum.
Piano tuning for the blind has a rich history beginning with Claude Montal in the early nineteenth century. Mr. Montal was a contemporary of Louis Braille and was associated with the Royal Institute of the Blind in Paris, France, where Louis Braille was a student. Claude Montal was, most likely, the first blind man to learn and practice the craft of piano tuning. After leaving the Royal Institute for Blind Youth, he went on to work at the Pleyel Piano Factory in France. After a time working for Pleyel, he began his own piano service business. He published a book on piano tuning and went on to build and sell his own pianos. Claude Montal was such a success that other blind men were taught piano tuning by the Royal Institute for Blind Youth. The teaching of piano tuning to the blind spread through Europe and eventually to America. Sometime in the 1860s, Samuel Gridley Howe of the Perkins School for the Blind made a tour of Europe to learn about the education of the blind there. He observed that blind men were learning to tune pianos and then being employed in piano factories. For the most part in America, tuning was taught to male students at schools for the blind. In the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century, hundreds of blind men were taught and were successfully practicing piano tuning to make a living.
I completed a course of piano tuning at the Emil Fries Piano Hospital and Training Center in Vancouver, Washington, back in 1973. I had the wonderful opportunity to then work at the school until it closed in 2016. In the school’s sixty-seven years of existence, hundreds of men and some women were trained to tune and repair pianos. Many were able to earn a substantial income. Many were able to get off of the SSI roles and other financial assistance programs, and become financially independent.
One unique characteristic of the piano technology field is that often the blind have an innate advantage because it is apparent, to almost everyone, that tuning requires the use of the human ear and most people think that the blind can hear better than everyone else: this gives a built-in advantage to the blind. It also gives blind tuners an opportunity to educate by explaining that the blind don’t hear better than the sighted; we just learn, by necessity, to pay attention to our hearing, and are trained by orientation and mobility teachers to listen and interpret the sounds around us to be efficient and stay safe.
As the blind have been moved into public schools for education and as schools for the blind are closed or their tuning training programs are discontinued, fewer blind men and women are trained in piano tuning and repairing today.
Opportunities in the field still exist. In the Portland, Oregon-Vancouver, Washington area, where I live, there are still fifty-three people who earn part or all of their living in this profession. The nature of the piano manufacturing industry has changed much in the last fifty years. Fewer pianos are manufactured in the United States, and piano sales have declined substantially. Many music stores throughout the country continue to sell both new and used pianos. Though, at seventy-three years old, I am retired, I continue to maintain over fifty pianos per year. If I were a younger man and wanted to pursue a full-time, full-scale piano tuning business, I am certain I could still be successful today. With the rise of ride-on-demand services like Uber and Lyft, one of the major difficulties in the business—transportation—is much more manageable today.
I have found much support from our national leadership; especially is this true from the employment committee. The majority of the work of spreading the good news of the piano tuning career has been done by blind piano tuners themselves. There are not enough blind piano tuners in the NFB to fill the need. Let’s shout the news of a way to earn a very substantial living and becoming in charge of your own destiny by running your own business.
I call upon all members of the Federation to join with me in sharing this opportunity with blind men and women who like working with their hands, enjoy working with people who are involved in music, and who want to become financially independent.
Just like the education of blind elementary students who are more and more mainstreamed in the public school system, we will need to turn to the few remaining schools that provide training in piano tuning and repairs. I assisted a woman in enrolling in the North Bennet Street School in Boston, where she graduated as a trained piano tuner/technician. So, there is a facility where we can be trained, but much mentorship will be required. The staff at the school is not trained in teaching the blind and often have many of the same low expectations society holds. This means that self-advocacy and mentoring by the blind is essential in the success of people trained in piano tuning in a mainstream environment.
I invite the leadership, both local and at the national level, to watch for young students who may have an interest in piano tuning and assist them in learning about this career path. I invite the instructors at the three NFB training centers to also work with me in getting the word out about the piano technology craft. I and other blind tuners would be happy to assist in mentoring and educating future students about this career.
If you have questions or would like to talk more about this opportunity, please contact me at [email protected] or 360-281-0187. I look forward to talking to you and any future students who might be interested in furthering this opportunity for the blind. Let’s highlight tuning in our museum, but let’s not write it off as a career!