there will be a need for experienced tuners, who perform the nuts-and-bolts adjustments to the instruments - no task for an amateur. I don't look for electronic keyboards to replace all pianos anyway, as there is simply no substitute for the tones produced by a 'real' piano.

It's sad to see the garbage that electronic keyboard makers are allowed to push to the public. They all sound like crap compared to a real piano. Of course, they know if they allowed a real sounding keyboard out of the factory, the public would never buy a replacement keyboard. Instead, companies like Yamaha make garbage then push a new model that's slightly less crappy. If they made a good keyboard, I'd buy that and never buy another. Instead, those of us that need keyboards keep being forced to give money to these crooks for incremental improvement. This problem could be solved by the government.

You really can't replicate the experience of playing a 9' or 12' concert grand on a digital keyboard. I don't mean that in some kind of psychological sense, though that component probably exists. There are very significant differences in tension and control, etc., which make it physiologically easier to get a beautiful performance from a large grand than from a smaller one, let alone from a digital piano.

There isn't a lot of demand for telegraphers and buggy makers these days either.

Sittin' on his daddy's knee
He picked up a hammer, a little piece of steel,
Said hammer be the death of me, Lord, Lord

The article is quite ignorant of musical physics, the out-of-tune harmonics of stiff strings, alternative temperaments, the sheer physical skill involved in tuning (and repairing, which often happen at the same time) a piano WITHOUT DAMAGING IT - in general, it reads like a high school report at best.

If you pretend that the "harmonics" of piano strings are in-tune harmonics, you will NEVER MAKE A PIANO SOUND GOOD. EVER. Even though you CAN make it show up perfectly "in tune" on a strobe tuner or other highly accurate electronic tuner.

Not worth the time it took to read it. If the "reduction of entropy" technique DOES work, it's accounting for a number of factors the author doesn't seem to understand (which is quite possible).

As someone who used to be responsible for hiring out the tuning of 45 pianos at a college music department i can tell you that pro piano tuners DO USE electronic tuners and have as long back as the 70's. They just don't DEPEND on them.

The article makes it out like this affects ALL instruments when this only affects pianos. Also the reporter forgets a VERY important issue. Even with a fancy tuning algorithm THE TUNING PEGS IN A PIANO DON'T TURN THEM SELVES.


Funny I recall the same being said by ignorant reporters once the Electronic tuners were invented.

This reporter's article will be a BOON to the piano repair industry with all the people damaging their fine instruments because a reporter who is too lazy to research told them they could replace a person with an iphone app.

didn't you know that little angels come down from Heaven and turn the pegs? If you pray REALLY REALLY hard this is what will happen. Mr. Santorum said that and prays every night for such occurrences in his bunk bed.

just in case...things are getting scary around here...

On edit: You are exactly correct...my brother had been a performing pianist and I have been around professional tuners for every one of my nearly 60 years.

I loved the way the strobe tuners worked.

they were hypnotically pretty.

It is the skill involved in hearing the exact pitches and intervals that make the instrument sound best that can be essentially replaced if electronic tuners become as good as the best professional listeners.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1203.5101

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1203.5101v1.pdf

Besides pianos, it should be useful for organs and harpsichords, which have individually tunable notes. Other stringed instruments, not so much, since with a guitar you get whatever the frets give you, modulo some stretching.

made a guitar that tunes itself. I have yet to try it, but I hear it sort of works so piano's are probably not far behind.

That said I have never, ever used an electric tuner and not had to make a few more adjustments by ear.

People can discuss frequencies and harmonics all you like, what it boils down to is... how does it sound.

Technology in music can be a wonderful thing when used properly. It's also killing the industry at the same time. Pro-Tools, Auto-Tune, Pitch Shifters, ugh. American Idol boxes I call them.

People trust technology in cases where they should not, and do NOT trust science in cases where they should. What's up with that?

caused by non-professional tuners who are unfamiliar with using a tuning hammer. And, good luck with replacing those strings with no experience.

And then there is all that adjustment of hammer density, etc. Oh, sure...this will replace professional tuners.

The reality is that the home piano is pretty much a dead duck, replaced with electronic keyboards. If you go to your local Craig's List, there's a free piano for you, if you want one. It'll need tuning and probably some work, but you can choose from many in most cities. If you're really patient, you can find a very lovely piano that has been cared for consistently at an estate sale. Just wait for the last day of the sale and show up with the piano movers. The price will have gone down enormously from the first day. You might even get a really nice piano that needs nothing without paying for more than the move.

It's very sad. The piano sitting in a room in a home, source of many hours of children learning to play, is going away, and it's very sad, indeed. There is something about strings and cast iron and wood that sounds different in a very nice way. There is no substitute from the friendly growl from the lower octaves, initiated by a cotton hammer controlled by a finger. None. It cannot be duplicated by electronics, since every keystroke produces a unique sound. You can sample it, but the sample doesn't vary in the same way between a child's finger and an adults, nor does it vary in the same way between a professional pianist and an amateur. The sound of a piano's hammer striking the string and the muting of that string when the key is released cannot be programmed into a digital form. It changes with every note and every player.

I mourn the death of the family piano.

Not for the faint-hearted

Or some other number...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concert_pitch

and the mechanisms, along with some of the wood panels, from a piano to build a clavichord from scratch a number of years ago. A very interesting project, which I later donated to a chamber music group. As far as I know, it's still in use.

.....MAN! that this felt good to play, like a mushy good worn in Steinway.

For example one string may represent G-sharp in one scale or chord but it will be "off-key" if the same pitch is used for A-flat in another scale or chord even though it's the same string. You have to nuance the pitch to fit both keys as well as being in pitch with other scales and chords.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enharmonic