How to become a musical instrument maker or repairer or tuner

Official title: Musical instrument maker/repairer/tuner

Also called: Accordion maker, Accordion tuner, Band wind instrument maker (metal), Brass band musical instrument maker, Drum maker, Metal musical wind instrument maker, Musical instrument maker, Musical instrument maker (stringed), Musical instrument maker (woodwind), Musical instrument repairer, Musical instrument tuner, Organ builder

Musical instrument maker/repairer/tuner makes, assembles, repairs, adjusts, restores musical instruments and tunes them to the required pitch with hand or power tools. He/she usually specialises in one type of instrument, such as string instruments, brass instruments, pianos, reed instruments or percussion instruments.

Main tasks

• Fabricating and assembling musical instruments and instrument parts of wood, ebonite, metal, leather and other materials
• Repairing or replacing musical instrument parts and components, such as strings, bridges, felts, and keys, using hand and power tools
• Playing and inspecting instruments to evaluate their sound quality and to locate any defects
• Adjusting string tensions to achieve proper tone or pitch of stringed instruments
• Adjusting lips, reeds, or toe hole of organ pipes, using hand tools, to regulate airflow and loudness of sound
• Tuning and servicing pipe organs by adjusting pitch of organ pipes to conform with pitch of tuning fork and adjusting pitch of other pipes with references to pitch of tuned pipes
• Installing new drumheads in percussion instruments
• Tuning accordions by aurally comparing pitch of reeds with master reeds and filing reeds to obtain standard pitch

Pay · Outlook · AI and this job

• Generative AI can do relatively little of this work, by the ILO's global estimate.

Related jobs

• Watch/Clock assembler/repairer
• Optical instrument maker/repairer
• Medical device assembler/repairer
• Jewellery/Precious metal worker
• Potter and related worker
• Glass maker/cutter/grinder/finisher

Not sure this is for you? Take the 2-minute career quiz

Questions people ask

Will AI change the work of a musical instrument maker or repairer or tuner?

Generative AI can do relatively little of this work, by the ILO's global estimate.

Sources

• International Labour Organization, Generative AI and Jobs: A Refined Global Index of Occupational Exposure (ILO Working Paper 140, Gmyrek et al.) (ILO Working Paper 140, May 2025, Annex Table A1), CC BY 4.0, retrieved 4 October 2026

Updated 4 October 2026