Fw: PTG Tuning Test - Confidential Information

[Keith Kopp]

Hello Jeff,
When I said "Don't do anything out of the normal" I meant not out of the
normal way you tune. If you find a piano out of tune by 24 cents your
normal tuning procedure very well might include a pitch adjust of some
kind. After I read your replay I did an experimental tune on an exam
piano here at BYU. I de-tuned the bass and high treble octave as
prescribed by the exam procedure. I then tuned those octaves to the
master tune, one pass only, without doing any pitch adjustment of any
kind. After the tune, I went back and measure the tuning to see how much
shift may have occurred. There was not one note that shifted more than
one cent. The average shift was less than .5 cent. This would have been
well within the 6 cents allowed before even one points would have been
lost. In the real world we are given a piano to tune without a road map
of what notes are out of tune and by how much. I feel the examinee is
also given a piano that is out of tune and if they want to be known as a
RPT they should be able to tune it. I believe the exam piano is detuned
in manner that examinees are not handicapped. Just tell them to tune the
piano. If they can tune at a RPT level, they will pass the exam.
Keith Kopp

-----Original Message-----
From: caut-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces@ptg.org] On Behalf Of
Jeff Tanner
Sent: Thursday, July 08, 2004 10:23 AM
To: College and University Technicians
Subject: Re: Fw: PTG Tuning Test - Confidential Information

Hi Keith, Fred,

On Wednesday, July 7, 2004, at 07:07 PM, Keith Kopp wrote:

>  I feel it is
> best to tell them to tune the piano as they would any normal tune. 
> Don't
> do anything out of the normal.

24 cents is out of the normal.  Even with a common pitch raise, it is 
uncommon to find the lowest bass strings at 24 cents deviation, unless 
the previous tunings had been done at something other than 440.   When 
adjusting pitch by this amount, you have to do something out of the 
normal.

If indeed the bass and treble are detuned by this amount, that would 
have been helpful information to know in advance, and would explain why 
my bass and treble did not stay put between the time I finished and the 
time it was scored.  Had I known the bass and treble were detuned by 
that amount, I would have treated the tuning in those areas more like a 
pitch correction.  Despite that strings are detuned alternatively flat 
or sharp, an overshoot of 6 cents would have been required to have 
offset these detuned strings.


>  To set them at ease, I tell them that the
> piano has been detuned in a manner that it will be as stable as 
> possible
> as they tune. Keith Kopp BYU

There's nothing stable about 2 passes to correct 24 cent deviation if 
the examinee is not aware there is this much deviation.

Also, I find it more difficult to tune the high treble, when there's 
this much deviation.  Under that pressure, when the beats are so fast 
you can't hear them, and in those frequencies, it becomes difficult to 
tell when you are and are not on.  Particularly with the hotel room air 
conditioner going : )

(can you guess which sections I scored lowest on?)

Jeff

Jeff Tanner, RPT
School Of Music
University of South Carolina

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