That is not the case. All wood is porous and a living material. In this video, I demonstrate (with the help of my daughter Yael) how moisture or lack of moisture causes the expansion and contraction of wood and I show how and why your piano goes in and out of tune.

In “Tuning and Caring for Your   Instrument“, I also show how I safeguard my piano against the destructive alternating forces and effects of dryness and humidity.

This is the second installment of my 2000 presentation at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. See The Lost Sounds of Music and Musical Demonstrations of Historical Keyboard Tunings and if you missed Piano Tuning Past & Present.

Before I discuss with you why you should for the most part keep your instrument away from sustained sunlight, I will try to help you gain some insight on how your piano is not simply a piece of furniture and why regular tuning and service is essential.

All pianos are designed by piano engineers to be beautiful furniture and as musical instruments to bear roughly 20 tons or 40,000 pounds of tension from the day they are born to the day they die.  They are jointed and glued together as are chairs, tables and cabinets. Unlike chairs and tables, they are built from thousands of parts and components; 80% wood, 20% metal.

Irregardless of the make or model, your piano was designed to fulfill a purpose of beauty through its appearance and outward design and its function and inner design.

The 3 worst things for your piano – What does your piano hate?

1. Fire or extreme heat or fluctuations from extreme dryness to
2. High humidity or extreme moisture
3. Neglect in the form of infrequent tuning and service

I will focus on the effect of ongoing or intermittent exposure to sunlight on your piano. Sunlight or radiant heat from the sun can slowly cook and kiln dry your piano over time.  This radiant heating effect can vary depending on the intensity of the sunlight in your area. If you live in a place like Philadelphia, New York, Paris or London where you get plenty of clouds, rain and moisture, the effect of that kind ongoing exposure to sunlight might not be as severe as if you live in Colorado, Arizona or a semi arid, desert environment. You should be very concerned in either case. Sunlight in areas that are moist and humid can be a destructive component and a factor in “humidity swings” that can literally shred your piano over time.

If your piano has a lacquer finish, the sun will heat and ‘alligator’ it. A lacquer piano finish that is referred to as such has a finish that resembles the skin of an alligator. But that is the least of your potential troubles if your piano is exposed to intense sunlight over an extended period of time. In some instances glue joints can become compromised and then other nasty symptoms of overexposure can become apparent.

The soundboard can crack, and ribs can loosen. Cabinet and action screws can loosen and lead to poor functioning and creaking, groaning mechanical dysfunction. Pianos have thousands of moving parts if you include the action mechanism so there is a lot that can go wrong.

At the very least, excess exposure to sunlight can cause tuning instability. If your piano does not hold a tune properly, then the value of it as a musical instrument is diminished.

How can exposure to sunlight affect the tune of your piano?

As most pianos are located in a living room or other room in your home, the sun will pass by and shine on your instrument for an hour or up several hours or more every day.  Heating and cooling wreaks havoc on the piano tuning because of the consequent expansion and contraction of the cast plate, strings and the wood and air in and around your instrument.

What does your piano love?

Pianos are like people. They need attention and love. My predecessor once told me that “pianos are big babies!” I will write further on how to prevent your piano from becoming a “PSO” or a “Piano Shaped Object.”

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.