A Piano that Tunes Itself
Other players have always been able to tune their own instruments, but not pianists.  Soon, perhaps they will... provided they're willing to let their self-tuning piano "warm up."

Professional pianists call on professional tuners to tune their instruments at regular intervals (so to speak), or to tune them immediately before a concert.  What about the rest of us?  Normal changes in humidity and temperature can cause our pianos to sound like clunkers.

An engineer (and amateur pianist) in Kansas City is developing a prototype of a self-tuning piano, using electrical power to make slight adjustments of the temperatures of the 250-odd piano strings to tweak their tuning.  If his design works, all that will be required will be a 20-second warm-up, and the touch of a button.  An internal computer will take care of the rest.

Manual tuning will still be required if it goes way out of tune, but regular adjustments will be automatic.  Not worth the price, some critics say, but a subsequent letter to the editor points out that not everyone lives in a metropolitan area with an abundance of nearby tuners.

This new technology has been licensed to QRS Music Technologies by its inventor, Don A. Gilmore.

 Link to New York Times, Jan. 2, 2003