The Cégep de Saint-Laurent is developing an educational program to train piano tuning technicians. This will be the first diploma of its kind in Quebec and Canada.
The Quebec educational project had been in the making for years, and the pandemic slowed down its completion.
Authorization to launch this new training course was officially granted by the Ministry of Higher Education at the beginning of the month. The detailed curriculum for the new Quebec training will be submitted next December, then the recruitment of trainers will begin in spring 2025, with the aim of welcoming the first cohort of students in the fall session of the same year.
Tuner technicians will receive a certificate of college studies (an AEC, different from the DEC, the diploma of college studies) after approximately one year of courses. The first qualified technicians could enter the job market in 2026. The first batch could include around ten professionals.
The profession of tuner (also known as tuner-repairer) appeared with the popularization of the pianoforte at the beginning of the 19th century.e century. Unlike other musicians in an orchestra, pianists do not tune their instruments themselves. Tuning training has almost always and everywhere been the responsibility of large instrument manufacturers or of master practitioners themselves. There are a few rare schools in the world, including the European Technological Institute for Music Professions (ITEMM) in France. There are no regulations governing this profession in the country.
Both venues and music schools need well-maintained instruments. There are approximately 350 performance halls in Quebec and more than 1,200 pianos in educational establishments, instruments used up to ten hours a day. The Quebec Conservatory has 50. The University of Montreal has each of its 180 instruments tuned several times a year, for 800 tunings in all.
The current Quebec market is occupied mainly by elderly men, with barely 7% of female tuners. “We need to prepare the next generation in the sector,” explains educational advisor Vicky Tanguay, who set up the training project for the college. For her analysis of the sector, she met a 94-year-old tuner still at work who was proud to have found “a young person” to replace him, a 65-year-old apprentice…
At the request of the Ministries of Higher Education and Culture and Communications, Mme Tanguay produced three studies to demonstrate training needs by dissecting the profession and its knowledge; understand the potential clientele of the courses; and analyze the job market for graduates. Its surveys revealed that experts in the profession are in favor of authentication of the profession as well as recognized training.
Future CEGEP registrants must already have a DEC in music in their pocket. This training is offered in 13 colleges in Quebec, including Saint-Laurent. “To become a tuning technician, you need to have a passion for the instrument and a good ear,” summarizes M.me Tanguay.
The genesis of this educational project goes back to Oliver Esmonde-White, very active and recognized as an expert in the field. “Mr. Esmonde-White sounded the alarm on the glaring needs in the sector and he approached the Ministry of Higher Education, which ultimately made a request to the Cégep de Saint-Laurent to launch studies on the possibility of develop training, recognizes Mme Tanguay. But ultimately, we took different paths. »
In 1996, the enthusiast launched his high-end piano maintenance and restoration company in Montreal, Piano Esmonde White, which trains apprentices. He filed patent applications for inventions improving the mechanics of instruments. He dreams of an instrument manufacturing factory. On the day of the visit Dutythe apprentices and employees of his workshop prepared high-end pianos for various large concert halls and virtuosos.
“The ministry will do its things, but I find that they are not the right things,” says the master, himself a graduate of the prestigious Yamaha Piano Technical Academy. “I want a school, but not to quickly graduate four times too many people who are not well trained, in addition. We will repeat the mistakes made elsewhere. Ten technicians per year is already too many. Four or five better trained people would be enough. »