Musical wind instrument with electronic tuning

Abstract

Instrument having automatic fine-tuning of pitch with no moving parts. A flute is described as one embodiment. In flutes of the prior art the various notes are often slightly off pitch because of compromises in the locations of the holes, and musicians must compensate. In this invention a built-in electronic sensor picks up sound as a musician plays, and a circuit identifies the intended note. The played note is compared with, an accurate reference pitch and the frequency difference is used to generate a signal in phase quadrature with the played note. The quadrature signal is added to correct the pitch. The added vibration energizes a tuning actuator that is located in place of a conventional tuning plug of the flute. The tuning actuator pulls the pitch automatically to achieve a precisely correct pitch as each note is played. Also, a player can intentionally deflect the pitch.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.