1. Minimize humidity changes and fluctuations.
2. Keep your piano out of direct sunlight, period.
3. Have your piano tuned on a regular basis, 2 times a year by an experienced professional.

I will elaborate on these in coming posts.

I write this blog to educate about the relationship between tuning and music. Some time ago in an attempt to bring some light on the subject, I did a presentation on a variety of tunings used historically prior to the our modern “Equal Temperament.”I.e. “Well Temperament, Meantone, Just and Pythagorean tunings.” I suggest you “self tuning piano folks” watch it so you can gain a deeper appreciation for piano tuning in general. Then the question might become “self tuning piano” to what?

Technology is always trying to outdo great achievements. The modern piano is one of the greatest inventions of all time. Pianos requires input from human beings tuning or playing them. Why does that have to be improved upon? If you are looking for a real improvement, consider getting your piano re-tuned to a Well Temperament or perhaps a Modified Meantone Temperament and then play Beethoven, Chopin or Bach so you can hear what that music should and did sound like when it was composed. You can even play Jazz in these intonations.

Do you want a self tuning piano? There are tons of them already out there. They are called “electric keyboards.” If you want an acoustic self tuning piano you might have to wait a bit longer for that. As far as what happened to Gilmore’s piano? I believe it didn’t pass the muster.

Please tell me what your question is and I will do my best to answer it. Bear in mind that it might take a little time for me to get back to you but if you are willing to be a little bit patient, I will get respond. If for some reason you don’t hear from me please just remind me that you tried to contact me.

You can ask me a question by simply posting a comment on this blog post. To do that you will have to get a user name and password from wordpress.com if you don’t have one already. But that only takes a minute as WordPress makes it all very easy to do.

Look forward to talking to you!

Thanks

So there is a dream out there among techies of building a piano that tunes itself. Good luck. I think this might be a case of what perfection may or may not be. Technology in and of its self is not bad and much creativity and innovation can come from it so I applaud the effort even though it would seem that the result is a non starter for those piano owners who do not want to pay for their next piano tuning.

“On March 12, 2004, the Make-A-Wish Foundation® of Metro St. Louis – supported by the generous assistance of Yamaha Cares, an employee-based, charitable giving initiative of Yamaha Corporation of America – presented Wish Teen Sarah, of Cobden, IL, with her dream piano – a Yamaha Disklavier.”

Read more…..

I tune many Yamaha pianos and generally find them to be consistent and reasonable instruments to tune.

In About Us, I will tell you a little more about myself, my back ground and motivation for writing about all of this stuff. All piano owners need continuing Education, and so do piano tuners for that matter.

In Myths, I will point you to some common misconceptions and fantasies that people have about their pianos and tuning. Aesthetics has everything to do with piano tuning but I will discuss one of the most misunderstood, unknown by most subjects – historical tunings and I don’t think it will put you to sleep.

And then there is the question of Technology. Tuning technology has a profound effect on technicians (tuners) and tunees (those of you who have your pianos tuned.)

So…..stay ??? tuned…Ouch!