[CAUT] Sacrifice (was tuners- technology)

[Fred Sturm]

On 3/1/05 9:11 PM, "Don" <pianotuna@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Let's not forget that the lowly unison apparently defeats *all* the EDT's
> (that I have tried).
Hi Don,
    Interesting statement. I can see where you would get that opinion:
often, tuning each string of a unison by "stopping the lights" (whatever the
display is) _will_ result in a less than perfect unison. Yet I find that if
I examine more closely, using either SAT or RCT (haven't used any other
ETD's), I will find that maybe I was hasty in deciding I had actually
"stopped the lights." Bottom line is that I find I can tune far, far cleaner
unisons using the device than not. And far more solid.
    It's just a tool. It's like a finely graded ruler. It takes great care
to obtain a good, precise cut on a piece of wood using a precise rule. Just
having the ruler that is divided by 32nds instead of 16ths doesn't make you
a better measurer.
    With regard to your statement that "Inharmonicity varies with humidity
and the barometric pressure," and the general notion that a piano might be
different every time you approach it, I can see some evidence for that point
of view. OTOH, from a practical point of view, I have found that I can use
stored tunings repeatedly for same model pianos, and find no perceptible
difference in the quality of the tuning. With the caveat that the stored
tuning has been vetted a bit, that more than one reading has been made on a
given model of piano, and that wildly different readings have been
discarded.
    My conclusion has been that those occasional outlandishly different
readings are a result of "para-harmonicity," which I would define as
apparent production of partials that are fairly far out of line. I think
there are probably many factors that lead to these readings, and that one of
them must be sympathetic vibrations from other strings on the piano (even
though damped). Together, perhaps, with pitches generated by the soundboard
assembly itself (the whole works, including bridges and strings). This is
the only explanation that makes sense to me for occasional wild differences
between readings taken before and after tuning a piano (once through),
especially when the piano was not that far off pitch.
    There are mysteries out there, and ETD's are by no means infallible. But
they are a wonderful tool to have in the arsenal. I would, like you, never
be without one.
Regards,
Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico