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Association of Blind Piano Tuners (ABPT)


Welcome to the Association of Blind Piano Tuners (ABPT)

Our website known as the "UK Piano Page". It contains information about everything related to pianos; we are the home of UK piano industry. We have designed the site to make things easier to find and allow professionals listed on this site to update their details. We have one of the largest collections of piano history information on the internet, with a special emphasis on the history of the piano industry in the United Kingdom. We also cover a wide selection of overseas piano makers, and provide links to sites with a piano history theme.
 

The UK Piano Page also contains a wealth of information on tuners, manufacturers, movers, accompanists, teachers, entertainers, hire companies, French polishers, piano part makers, and piano construction. You may even find places to wine and dine with live piano music in the background.

We have a database of pianos for sale by shops around the UK, as well as a free section for the general public to advertise their pianos for sale. We also operate an extensive online piano gift shop where you can buy piano stools, castor cups, metronomes and lots of other piano related gifs and accessories. If you would like to advertise on the UK Piano Page, please visit our advertising page.

Answers to a variety of piano-related questions are found on the pub quiz page. We have an active piano discussion forum where you can seek answers to questions on pianos, their history, and piano music.

The Aims of the Association of Blind Piano Tuners

The Association of Blind Piano Tuners exists to serve the professional and particular needs of its members and other blind and partially sighted piano tuners throughout the world. 
 

Students
Student Membership is open to all visually impaired persons in full time training.
 

Friends
A Friend is anyone wishing to be associated with the ABPT or who has helped the ABPT in the past, or made a donation.
 

International Members (MABPT)
This is open to visually impaired tuners from around the world who have attended a recognized training school and are qualified.
 

Members (MABPT)
This is for visually impaired tuners from the UK who have attended a recognized training school and qualified with the AEWVH (CTB) diploma or equivalent.
 

Fellows (FABPT)
This is open to members of the ABPT who have undergone extra training to enhance their skills.
 

Honorary Life Members
This is open to members of the ABPT who have been members for over ten years and have satisfied Council of their eminence in the profession or of the importance and value of their services to the ABPT. The status of Honorary Life Member is at the discretion of the ABPT Council, and no more than five may be serving at any one time.
 

Only Members and Fellows who are resident in the UK are covered by our insurance policies. Only Full Members, Fellows, International Members and Associated Members may add the letters to their name and use the ABPT logo. All membership is at the discretion and approval of the ABPT Council.
 

We encourage all tuners to gain and maintain the highest professional standards and to exhibit ethical and professional integrity at all times.
 

We offer ongoing training to piano tuners who wish to acquire extra levels of ability. This is open to all everyone, even if they are not yet members of the Association. We do this by running subsidised seminars for fully sighted and visually impaired tuners. We maintain close links with all of the professional bodies of the music industry, and in particular with piano tuning organisations worldwide. The purpose of the website is to educate the general public in the good practice of maintaining their musical instruments and using professional tuners to do this work. This follows the broad outline of our mission statement. If we may be of any further assistance to you, please contact us.
 

 

Mission Statement.

To continue as the leading authority and association for blind or partially sighted piano tuners, insisting that only those professionally trained, examined, and qualified are accepted into membership, ensuring that the public knows that an ABPT member will offer skilled, professional, and reliable service.

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Did You Know Piano Facts

1400
By approximately 1400 the clavichord had about ten strings and inearlier examples two notes or more were produced from that string or pair of strings by making two or more tangents contact thesame string or pair of strings at different points. This typeis termed fretted, or in German Gebunden. A later type, in whicheach note has its own string, or strings, is called a "Bundfrei"clavichord. The clavichord is the simplest and usually the smallestof string keyboard instruments. It is rather like an oblong boxwith the keyboard running nearly the length of one long side andwith the horizontally placed strings almost parallel to that side.The small wrest pins and bridge are at the right-hand side andthe strings are permanently damped at their left-hand ends by astrip of felt or cloth. The strings are struck from below by smallpieces of metal shaped like a screwdriver blade, which are fixed tothe backs of the key frame as tangents.

Since about 1450 keyboards have virtually remained the same,except for a little variation in the colour of the keys, as the older ones had the reverse of the present-day key colouring. The organ was the first keyboard instrument and the weight of the keys has varied greatly since the earliest examples, whose keys were so heavy that the players were called "Organ Beaters." Around the thirteenth or fourteenth century, keyboards were laid out according to the natural modes which were the basis of the musical system. The interval of the augmented fourth, B toF, was considered discordant, so B was lowered by adding anextra short key, which procedure then led to five accidentals, B flat being followed by F sharp, E flat, C sharp, and G sharp.

Today's arrangement was found as long ago as 1361, as demonstrated by paintings of the time. The first member of the harpsichord family was the virginal or virginals. The strings on this instrument are plucked by plectra and the shape is similar to that of the clavichord. The spinet followed the clavichord and then came the more elaborate harpsichord.

Tuning often followed the meantone system where major thirdswere tuned precisely and other intervals tempered. This created somevery wild intervals and the howling sound resulted in them beingcalled "wolves" or the "wolf interval." If a series of fifths is tunedfrom the bottom A upwards, when the top A is reached it will be a quarter of a semitone sharp if all are tuned in pure intervals, and this is called the Pythagorean comma. The spinet could have received its name from a possible Italianinventor, Giovanni Spinette, or from the connection with spinethorns, which were used for plucking the strings.