What is the best and most credible way to become a piano tuner/technician?

First off, I agree that it would be ideal to have perfect pitch, but not a requirement. That's what the tuning fork is for. All you need is a really good "relative pitch". If you had perfect pitch, you wouldn't need the tuning fork, right??

A friend of mine got a job as a piano tuner by finding a piano tuner that would train him as an apprentice. He didn't have to go out and by all the tools and stuff and he got plenty of experience. Enough to start his own piano tuning business, in fact. Of course, he decided to go another route, but I believe that finding a mentor to train you wold be ideal. Don't try to go it alone.

I did see a cool resource that you could get real cheap (around 20 bucks) that will help you out, though. It's a downloadable e-book put out by a guy that does this for a living. I guess he claims that you could do it all on your own by reading his material, but I'm not so sure about that. The name of his company is called Affleck Piano Tuning. There is a link to his site below.

My FIRST question is.. DO YOU HAVE PERFECT PITCH? If the answer is NO.. then you may as well stop right here. And, then my SECOND question is.. CAN YOU PLAY THE PIANO?.. and I don't mean with just 2 fingers.. I mean CAN YOU PLAY THE PIANO? becaue, the FINAL checkout for ANY piano tuning or repair work.. or an organ.. is to PLAY IT and if you can't PLAY THE PIANO then you can FORGET ever being a Piano tuner with any credibility.

Piano tuning is part art part science and a BIG part technique. The basic tools are TUNING FORKS and you MUST be able to hear very fine changes in tone.

I spend a couple of years servicing CHURCH ORGANS and used many of the same tools and techniques the Piano tuner used.. but I could use a STROBE TUNER for an organ.. which is virtually useless for tuning a PIANO since you have to TUNE 3 STRINGS instead of just ONE. AND.. even a strobe tuner is not enough for a large church organ because they have MULTIPLE COMPUTERS and they have to be set up so that the beat note between them is less than 2 Hertz.. this is what gives them their charasteric sound and approximates the fine differences you get in a PIPE ORGAN.. and I've worked on them too.

If you are really serious then you need to find a piano tuner and APPRENTICE to them.. you won't learn how to tune pianos in an Associates course in a Jr. College and you CANT SELF TEACH.. the only way to learn is by becoming an APPRENTICE for at LEAST A YEAR or longer.

BTW.. during those 2 years I worked on Church Organs, the piano tuner with the company spent a lot of time teaching me about piano tuning.... and I don't consider myself good enough to do it for PAY.. but I do use my knowledge when I am playing a gig somewhere, to TUNE their piano for them since most pianos in public places are OUT OF TUNE.