If you don’t believe me, just look at your local Craigslist. Because there are more tuners retiring than there are young ones replacing them, the demand for piano tuners is on the rise-and even though electronic keyboards exist and have cut somewhat into the market, pianos (both new and used) continue to be bought and sold at high rates.A good tuner makes between $100 and $120 to tune one piano (between $70 and $80 an hour, which gets factored in if repairs, as well as tuning, are needed).Here are some general facts regarding the business of piano tuning: The kit sat in the attic, as patiently as Jumanji, until I felt myself pulled back to it over a decade later.īecause I thought I should have a career, and I wanted to do something where I would be my own boss, where I could set my own hours, where I could contribute in some way towards the creating of art, and, of course, where I could make good money. That Christmas, instead of Lego or baseball cards, she gave me a piano tuning kit.
When I was 12 and taking piano lessons regularly, I mentioned to my mom that it would be neat if I could tune my own piano.
This wasn’t the first time the thought of being a tuner had crossed my mind. I was 24 and felt it was time to “grow up.” Friends I knew were buying houses, getting pregnant because they planned to, and there was a general sense of It’s-Time-to-Settle-Down floating in the air in the same way cheer supposedly does around Christmas. In the winter of 2014, I decided to become a piano tuner after dropping out of an MFA program and moving to Madison, Wisconsin. Photo credit: antony griffiths, CC BY 2.0. Can you really make $80 an hour tuning pianos? I decided to find out.