We offer internships of several weeks' duration for interested colleagues, students and graduates as a refinement of skills. Free accomodation possible in our guest house, team lunch :-)

Applications to: info (at) greifenberger-institut.de

Our institute offers a unique option of apprenticeship combining modern piano making and the art of historical craftsmanship.

In a dual education system the apprentices get the theorical knowledge in the Oscar-Walcker-Schule Ludwigsburg, the only vocational school for piano and harpsichord making in Germany and a leading institution of its kind in Europe. Practical learning is done in the Greifenberger Institut as training employer.

The trainees learn everything necessary for modern piano making and maintenance in a repair workshop for modern pianos headed by Reinhold Mühling, from tuning and regulating actions up to complete overhaul of the acoustical components. This includes handicraft as well as machine use.

The great range of work using historical manufacture technique is a specific part of training here. The apprentices are part of the scientific team, build their own instruments and receive all informations about instruments and the old masters of previous centuries.

In building their projects, a copy of a bentside spinet after J. H. Silbermann, only traditional tools like planes, files, saws or card scrapers are used and trained for precise handling.

The apprenticeship as a piano and harpsichord maker lasts for  three and a half years with a theoretical and practical journeyman exams at the end. For apprentices with Abitur the Oscar-Walcker-Schule offers a special course „Management im Handwerk“ with a "Managementassistent (HwK)“ exam..

Further informations to be found here (German only):

Bund Deutscher Klavierbauer e.V.   http://www.bdk-piano.de

Oscar-Walcker-Schule                       http://www.ows-lb.de/

Das Handwerk                     https://handwerk.de/berufsprofile/klavier-und-cembalobauer-in