This Tasmanian has tuned 18,000 pianos. Now he’s won a place at Sydney Film Festival
After tuning an estimated 18,000 pianos over four decades, Martin Tucker feels his job is guaranteed to provide him with a living for as long as he wants.
Australians love playing the piano like the popular ABC series Piano shows – and acoustic (non-electronic) ones are always out of tune.
“I don’t have anything in my diary for June but I know there will be pianos needing tuning by June,” said the colorful and talkative Tasmanian Tucker, who stars in the new documentary. Piano Tuner. “I went through the recession of 2009 and stuff, it was bulletproof.
“We got through COVID. Everyone stayed home and wanted to play the piano. They weren’t spending their money on bigger things like bathroom remodels or new cars, but they could charge $200 or $300 to get the piano tuned.”
Tucker’s craft is the subject of Natalia Laska Piano Tuner, world premiere Sydney Film Festival In June. Festival director Nashen Moodley announced the program for the 73rd festival at the State Library of NSW on Tuesday night.
Opens on June 6 Selina Miles silencedA documentary about an Australian human rights lawyer Jennifer RobinsonHer work combats the weaponization of libel laws in the post-#MeToo era. Interview subjects include Amber Heard and Brittany Higgins.
The festival’s centerpiece, the $60,000 “bold, cutting-edge and gritty” cinema competition, features films (along with drama) from one of Iran’s former winners, Asghar Farhadi. Parallel Tales) and first Australian feature director (with horror film) in Adrian Chiarella Leviticus).
The competition also includes films by respected international directors such as Paweł Pawlikowski (Thomas Mann biopic). Fatherland), Cristian Mungiu from Romania (family drama) Fjord), Marie Kreutzer from Austria (Gentle Monster), American Olivia Wilde (drama) Invitation), Russian Andrey Zvyagintsev (thriller minotaur) and Japan’s Hirokazu Kore-eda (science fiction drama) Sheep in the Box).
To do Piano Tuner, Laska, who was featured in the $20,000 Australian documentary competition, filmed her partner Tucker at work for eight years.
“I’m Polish, so piano music is part of my heritage to Frederic Chopin,” he said, “but I was just there to listen.
“[Tucker] “It was my first encounter with a living piano tuner, and he is a natural performer, a chatty guy, and very funny.”
The documentary shows the 61-year-old Tucker wandering Tasmania (then the Northern Territory), being welcomed into music-loving homes and concert halls on his annual migration to warmer climates, and imparting simple advice such as “the way to keep the mice from coming in is to keep playing this music every day.”
After taking lessons as a child and performing at the Hobart eisteddfod, Tucker began tinkering with a difficult-to-repair Wurlitzer 200 electric piano that he played in bands in his late teens.
“I used to take the front part off this thing and play with it,” he said. “I was taking the part and tweaking it. Then it was a matter of ‘oh, I can take out the front part of the real piano that I need to learn.’
“I didn’t make any adjustments, but seeing all these wooden pieces and seeing how they worked got me into it.”
Tucker would not give an estimate of how many piano tuners or pianos there are across the country.
“Every Australian home used to have a piano, just like you have to have a laptop or a computer today,” he said. “But that number has been decreasing over the years.”
Tucker and piano moving expert Tony Gamble opened what they called a piano orphanage in Hobart.
“When people didn’t want their piano anymore and couldn’t sell it, he would take it away from them and put it in his shed,” Tucker said. “When someone asks for a piano, I might say, ‘Oh, there’s a nice one in Tony’s cabin.’
“We examine them. If there are pianos that are not good, I say, ‘Tony, you have to send it to the edge,’ otherwise we get a little burn.”
Although it’s a secure job, Tucker admitted that his profession has a downside.
“You probably have to tune 400 to 500 pianos a year to make a living,” he said. “But you tell banks you’re a piano tuner, and they think you’re an elephant trainer. They don’t see the numbers they want to see.”
Find out the next TV series, streaming series and movies to add to your must-watch list. Get the Watch List delivered every Thursday.
