New to the Group

Hi all

Welcome! Good salemen can be very helpful. Do you think you can call Baldwin's attention to the self tuning piano we often discuss here? I believe Baldwin (actually their owner) is a very progressive, forward-looking company. They might be able to beat the pants off Yam and SS if they mass market it first. C. C. Chang; more on piano practice at

In spite of not being regular contributors to this group, the executives at Baldwin (and Yamaha and Steinway) already know about the self-tuning piano. It's been 'announced' in such industry publications as Music Trades, and I'm sure the inventor has shopped the idea around to different companies.

What the execs Don't know is whether the thing will work, and whether they will be able to find qualified Piano Technicians who are masochistic enough to agree to service self-tuning pianos.

As if tuning is all they do.

If other industries had the same mindset, we wouldn't have self-starters, automatic transmissions, power windows and seats, etc. We wouldn't have plug-and-play computer peripherals. Or microwave ovens.

Yep, technology sure puts people out of work. Think of all those buggy whip and lamp wick weavers who are still looking for work. Linotype operators, too. Western Union telegraph operators. Slide rule assemblers.

And so on.

Tuning isn't ALL they do, but it's a pretty large part of it for most technicians. Do you think the owners of all these self-tuning pianos are going to take the money they've saved on tunings and apply it to keeping the pianos well-regulated and voiced, so that all these tuners can continue working on pianos?

In a word: Ha!

In a world filled with self-tuning pianos, most technicians will end up looking for different employment. Maybe this will be to the betterment of civilization, with time and talents previously spent turning tuning pins now employed in new technologies. So you may very well be right. However, I don't think I would see servicing a self-tuning piano as an opportunity to help usher in newer and better things. I'd see it as cutting my own throat.

With everyone learning piano 1000X faster, there will be 10 times more pianos sold. When all pianos are in perfect tune, voicing will be a much more important issue than it is now. And pianos break down constantly, not only go out of tune. I am willing to bet that at least half the time, tuners are called not because the piano is out of tune, but because it doesn't play. We must all operate on the assumption that progress is beneficial. C. C. Chang; more on piano practice at

Your observation re piano technicians is very astute. The self tuning piano is a white elephant because : 1. The more it is used , the more the pitch will drop. 2. Heating of the copper bass strings will rapidly cause them to unwind and sound dead. 3. The soft damper felt which rests on/against the strings will dry , harden and cause sound leakage. Also I wonder about condensation forming on the strings causing premature rust?

Perhaps the brave/progressive piano manufacturer who takes on this invention is going to end up with a lot of product recall.

Do you know this to be true from personal testing of the system? I don't think so.

Katzelmacher implies that the system has been rejected by other piano manufacturers, since he's 'sure' it was shopped around. More speculation posing as fact.

The reason the system wasn't made available to various manufacturers as I understand it is because the inventor, a semiregular poster here, entered into an exclusive arrangement with Story * Clark.

There also seems to be some misunderstanding of what a 'self tuning piano' is. It does not mean that the pianos won't require periodic tunings by a technician. It is not going to 'put tuners out of work'. All it is intended to do is put a piano that is to take a piano that has drifted a little between tunings, and bring it all to perfect tuning. If you stop getting the piano tuned by a tuner and the pitch drops enough, the system will not work.

It is *not* true that the more it is used the more the pitch will drop.

You aren't going to heat the copper bass strings enough to cause them to unwind of sound dead. That is silly.

The damper felt will not be affected by the slight temperature change any more than they do when the sun comes out and the room warms up.

And no, there isn't enough change made to cause condensation on the strings.

It sounds as if you guys think the thing is going to be yanking the strings up half a step at a time, turning tuning pins and all, heating strings to the point that they will dry rot felt, etc...... Geez..... you need to learn about these things before you start putting things on a newsgroup as facts.

Larry Doing the work of 3 men - Larry, Curly, & Moe Caution: I do not brake for sales weasels

Agreed. Most of the comments on this thread with respect to the self tuning piano have as much validity as those of a TV network anchorman, i.e. complete running of the mouth thru a polotical agenda from empty head. TS

Ignoring the blatant fallacy of the initial premise, I'll conject that

(a) most homes with a piano have a wreck that's rarely maintained if at all and

(b) even if you could accelerate learning, and even if making me learn piano quicker somehow means that 9 other people buy them or I buy 10 [there's nothing like logic and indeed, this is nothing like logic, but I'll go with you] digital pianos sales will more than overshadow any extra sales.

100 yrs from now, you might be right. But there are opposite viewpoints. Proliferation of digitals will certainly occur. Whether this will result in more or fewer acoustics bot is controversial, because if you become good enuf with digitals, you will almost certainly want an acoustic. Since digitals will encourage many more to START playing, its effect could very well increase acoustic sales. Secondly, you are assuming that only digitals improve with time. Acoustics can too. The self-tuning feature is a prime example, but I am sure that the prices of fine quality acoustics will eventually come down. All this will happen faster if demand increases. The internet will surely correct the sorry state of piano pedagogy of the last 200 yrs. C. C. Chang; more on piano practice at