Sydney Opera House piano tuner Terry Harper retires after 40 years
Terry Harper can barely play a chord, but he has made thousands of songs sound perfect.
One of the world's great pianists describes Mr Harper as the doctor who heals his throat so he can sing.
For 40 years, the piano tuner has been getting under the hoods of grand pianos at the Sydney Opera House.
He has checked all the notes for famous touring musicians like Vladimir Ashkenazi, Gary Burton and the late Chick Corea.
"You don't need to be able to play the piano to be a piano tuner," Mr Harper says.
"I tried to learn piano as a 10-year-old. I think I lasted about a year and a half."
He has played on thousands of pianos, mostly one key at a time, but only to make sure they sound pitch perfect.
Now he is calling time on his tuning career, which will also end a family legacy servicing the Opera House.
Mr Harper first set foot in the Opera House in the late 1960s when it was still a construction site.
He was 10 years old and on a tour with his father Ron, a pianist who played in jazz bands and orchestras in Sydney.
Looking around inside the grand ceiling and endless rows of red-seated chairs in the Opera House concert hall, he still remembers when it was an "open cavern".
"They used to do tours, I believe, on a Sunday while the building was still being built," Mr Harper says.
"All that was there up in the back rows was the concrete terraces that the seats were supposed to go on to.
Mr Harper would sometimes play drums with his father, who, he says, was a "very good pianist".
Mr Harper says not long after the Opera House opened in 1973, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra was rehearsing but its concert pianist refused to play until the piano was tuned.
His father, who also happened to be a piano tuner, was called in.
"He sent the orchestra off into the Botanic Gardens for an hour or two while he tuned the piano and the pianist came back and was very happy," Mr Harper says.
Ron Harper was then offered the position of tuning the pianos in the Opera House, becoming the venue's first official tuner.
Terry got his first shot at tuning in the Opera House when he was 19, after studying piano tuning at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.
"My dad said, come down and you can tune all the pianos around the building," Mr Harper says.
Mr Harper worked at the Opera House for two years before heading overseas to tune pianos at the head office of Steinway.
He returned to the Opera House in 1986 when his father retired from the job, handing it on to Terry.
Renowned British concert pianist Stephen Hough has been coming to the Opera House since the 1990s and has played at least 40 times.
Meeting on stage ahead of a run of shows last week, Sir Stephen said he had had a 30-year relationship with Terry akin to having a personal throat doctor.
"You know, this is my voice," Sir Stephen said, pointing to a black Steinway & Sons grand piano at the front of the Concert Hall stage.
"Terry's like the doctor that sorts out the problem in the throat — and then I am able to sing.
"Nobody understands how much is involved in that."
Mr Harper has been the throat doctor for hundreds of touring musicians, from concert pianists, who often want warm, soft and mellow sounding pianos, to pop piano players who prefer a bright sound.
"They expect all of those 240-odd strings to be perfectly in tune and that's my job," Mr Harper says.
Mr Harper is about to turn 69, some 59 years after first setting foot inside the worksite, 50 years since first tuning pianos in the Opera House with his father, and 40 since becoming its go-to tuner.
There are two effects of his long career that he will live with for the rest of his life.
The first is from a lifetime of tuning. He can walk into a room and immediately know the piano is out of tune.
"Instantly I can tell a piano is out of tune. On a recording [or] in a room," Mr Harper says.
Even though he will be officially retired, Mr Harper says when he comes back to the Opera House for a concert he will still listening out for any giveaways of an out-of-tune piano.
"Whenever I'm listening to a piano, I'm listening to the out-of-tuneness or whether it's in tune," Mr Harper says.
The second effect is that of the Opera House itself.
Mr Harper says he's going to miss the friendly faces of the hundreds of people who make hundreds of performances happen, often without getting to take an on-stage bow themselves.
"There's all the musicians. There's the guys that work on the stage. They've always made me feel very welcome," Mr Harper says.
"When you walk up to the Opera House, especially if you come here every day, it's just a happy place to be."
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