As Venkateswara Rao plucks the string of the piano with steady hands and pristine hearing, one would hardly imagine he is 90. On hearing how jarring the note sounds, he turns the tuning key of the piano with a lever. Rao doesn’t need sophisticated technology or software; instead, he takes out a 440Hz tuning fork from his pocket and strikes it on his wrist. He then places the vibrating fork on the board near the tuning key to listen to the note.
Rao is one of the few veteran piano tuners in Chennai who still calibrates the instruments of stalwarts such as Ilaiyaraaja and A R Rahman, using 18th century German composer Johann Sebastian Bach’s technique.
Rao belongs to a family of musicians and began learning Carnatic music at the age of six. After he finished Class VIII, his uncle sent him to Machilipatnam in Andhra Pradesh, where he learned how to repair instruments while studying music.
At the age of 20, he came to Chennai and started working at a harmonium manufacturing unit where he learned to tune instruments. By then he had fallen in love with tuning. “I was fascinated by the way string instruments worked and how each instrument had a unique sound quality,” says Rao.
That’s when he began reading books on tuning and came across Bach’s book ‘The Well-Tempered Clavier’. “I have been using that tuning technique with a tuning fork ever since, that is almost 300 years old,” he says.
By the age of 50, he became the most sought-after piano tuner in Chennai. One day, Dhanraj Master, the bedrock of western music in Chennai and Ilaiyaraaja’s guru, called Rao to tune his piano. “In that meeting, Dhanraj sir taught me some tricks on tuning the piano for western music. They opened up avenues for me,” says Rao.
Ever since, he has tuned pianos for All India Radio’s station director and pianist Handel Manuel, jazz musician Herbie Hancock, pianist David Robinson, American pianist Roman Rudnytsky, British pianist Alan Rowlands, recording studios, churches and private collectors. Now, he attends only a handful of tuning calls for well-wishers.
But age has not caught up with him. “My hands are as steady as ever, and I can catch even the minutest of inflections in a key. It takes an hour for me to tune a piano with 200 strings (steel wires inside the piano that vibrate when you play). It takes three to four hours if the piano is older,” he adds.
So, what keeps him going? “If you want to be a tuner, the first thing is to be physically fit. The strings are tight and strong; and your mind needs to work along with your hands. Eat right; that’s the secret.”
Rao believes that today’s tuning apps and software fall short in detecting subtle shifts in a note — something only a trained human ear can perceive. “Music needs the human touch, and that’s what makes the art of tuning so unique,” he says. V Sridhar, Rao’s second son is taking his legacy forward by learning his father’s tuning techniques.