[CAUT] Stretch

[Fred Sturm]

On Feb 4, 2007, at 8:54 PM, rwest1 at unl.edu wrote:

> Conclusion:
> All of these aural tests would be possible to calculate, but  
> difficult and time consuming to do, especially for every note of  
> the piano.  Numbers and measuring don't, IMHO, capture the essence  
> of tuning.  ETD's can crunch some numbers, average them out, and  
> give an excellent calculated result, but whether or not those  
> calculations actually fit the piano depends on what you hear.
Hi Richard,
	Listening to all kinds of aural tests gives the illusion (IMO) of  
fitting a tuning to the piano, note by note, every single one. But,  
of course, there really isn't enough time to do all the tests, and  
the results are often contradictory and can lead to more confusion  
than clarity. In the practical world, all that fussing with getting  
each beat rate precisely correct tends to lead to spending far too  
much time and effort on deciding, at the expense of achieving solid  
and clear unisons throughout. None of that fussiness matters if the  
unisons aren't utterly clear and solid. To my way of thinking, the  
major benefit of the ETD is that the average tuner using it spends  
most of the effort on "accomplishing" the tuning rather than on  
making countless decisions, resulting in better unisons and stability.
	Numbers are merely a model of the physical world, the kind of model  
that is successful in sending rockets to other planets among other  
feats. Yes, there does need to be a ground control to watch over  
things, but they would be helpless without those numerical  
calculations. Granted, with the piano there is a level of complexity  
with scale breaks and whatnot, but it is not all that complex. Even a  
reading of pairs of partials of three strings (FAC for SAT) produces  
a tuning curve that is quite acceptable to most people, and which  
tends to ace the PTG tuning test (high 90's for most careful tuners).  
The more sophisticated machines take more into consideration, and  
give opportunity to customize to the piano or the tuner's style.
	Can an aural tuner find fault with a tuning produced via  
calculations of an ETD? Certainly. And it is also true that an aural  
tuner can find fault with any tuning produced via purely aural means.  
I, for one, don't find the differences significant. Tunings are  
fleeting things at the best of times.
Regards,
Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico
fssturm at unm.edu



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