Howard Zuidema - piano tuner

Howard Zuidema

     Howard Zuidema carries an unlikely briefcase wherever he goes.

     “I always have my tools with me, just in case,” says the venerable Great Falls Public Schools   piano tuner, displaying specialized hammers, screwdrivers, pliers, mutes and tuning forks.

     Wielding his tools for over thirty years, Zuidema has delicately adjusted pins and strings inside hundreds of pianos to ensure that everything will result in the correct tune.

     With an ear that has been “pretty good,” Zuidema can tell if something is out of tune.  Yes, he does have perfect pitch, but he says, it is also a matter of training the ear.

     When he was in grade school in Conrad, Montana, he recalls his brother, Sam, telling another brother to play a note and he could play or name that note.  Zuidema thought “can’t everybody do this?’”

     He found he had something special.

     “Turns out, Sam had perfect pitch, and so did I.”

     Eventually, matching music and sound surrounded his life.

     Descending from a line of musicians, Zuidema’s grandfather was the organist for the Reformed Church in Conrad. A music teacher, his mother initially taught him music, and as a church organist influenced him to later play the organ. When he was sixteen years old, he took piano lessons from Mary Richards who traveled to Conrad to teach.  He attended the University of Montana and majored in music for two years before heading to the United States Army.  Once discharged, he returned to Montana, and in 1982, he started training at Nicholls Music in Great Falls as a piano tuner.  He allows much credit for learning the skill to Harold Nicholls, David Lamb, and Peter Briant. 

     In 1985, he became self-employed as a piano tuner and moved back to Conrad.

     Traveling with the tools of his trade, he tuned pianos for private clients in Conrad, Sweet Grass, Cut Bank, Vaughn, Havre, and Great Falls.

     When the Great Falls School district’s tuner quit just before the 2002 Christmas concerts, Zuidema applied for the position and was hired.  

     Since then, he has annually kept sixty pianos in tune.  As he goes from school to school, Zuidema tunes most pianos twice a year. In addition, he tunes the instruments that are used in music festivals three times a year.

     He is proud to say: “when I was at my best I could tune six to seven pianos a day; now, I tune three to four.” 

     It takes an hour or more to tune a piano. Some are easy stringers, some have problems and are hard to tune. Piano strings tend to move around and loosen over time changing the tones they emit when played.  Changes in humidity and temperature can also affect string tension and constant vibrations cause tuning pins to loosen. Some new pianos have tight tuning pins which can be difficult.  Pianos can get rusty strings and the pins don’t stay.  Tuning a piano is a technique no matter the maker of the piano.  The piano tuner has to get used to how the pins are made and how they are set.

    “If I have a whole lot of Wurlitzers I get a rhythm going on them,” he says.

     The most difficult piano he ever tuned was a Star spinet.  The Wurlitzers and the Baldwins are hard.  The oldest piano that he continues to tune is an Erard from the 1850s.  Most pianos that old can’t be played, but this one has been kept in good playing condition by Zuidema.

     Over three decades, hundreds of pianos have been kept in good order by Zuidema. Off the top of his head, he lists those pianos which include: Erards, Bosendorfers, Steinways, Baldwins, Wurlitzers, Steindells, Howards, Monarchs, Ellingtons, Kimballs, Whitneys, Yamahas, Williams & Sons, Beckwiths, Kawais, Tadashis, Brambachs, Kops, Haddorffs, and Packards.

     For Zuidema, noteworthy experiences abound from some of these grand instruments which belonged to celebrities like George Winston, Phil Aaberg, The Oakridge Boys, and Wayne Newton.

     “Newton had two pianos; he practiced with his band while I tuned the other piano,” he recalls.

     And, there was a time when Zuidema used to tune for Dick McFarland, a self taught refinisher who reclaimed pianos in his basement.  McFarland had an elevator in his house for that.

     As he muses about musicality, Zuidema can’t help but give advice that the piano may play on.

     Keeping a piano in tune requires good humidity.  That can be achieved through piano humidity systems or humidifying the home.  It is wise to keep direct heat off the sound board in particular.  Wood stoves are bad for a room that contains a piano as they dry out the air.  Wooden surfaces of the piano should be oiled.

     In addition to tuning pianos, every Sunday, Zuidema faithfully slides behind the keys and pedals of the organ at the Christian Reformed Church in Conrad.  He has played the organ there since 1973, the same church where his mother used to play.

     On both the piano and the organ, Zuidema enjoys the music of his favorite composer, Bach, from whom he gains inspiration.

     “On every page of music he (Bach) wrote ‘God alone be the glory.’”

      It is the same for Zuidema who believes his humble proficiency has a higher calling.   As his fingers glide over a newly tuned piano the eloquent sounds of Bach can be heard.  He plays from memory and the love of what he does.

     “I am blessed in life to have music.  I enjoy making the piano sound good.  That is really satisfying to me,” he says.