Hi Richard, In general, the mid range and bass in my tuning style is not much different from most (best I am able to figure), especially on concert grands. The bass has a very low inharmonicity, so it is easy to synchronize the mid range to it. My bass style is essentially "somewhat wide" 6:3 8ves, which translates often, on larger instruments, to beatless or somewhat wide 8:4. My 5ths approach beatless, my 4ths are a bit "dirtier" than theory would call for. Octaves sound "on the verge of beating," kind of like unisons that are purposely tuned not quite beatless to liven up a dead note. There's enough partial coupling that no actual beat occurs. How much faster is G3B4 compared to G3B3? About 1 bps. Does that mean that B3B4 beats at 1 bps? No. There is enough coupling of the 4:2 and 6:3 partials that there isn't a perceptible, regular beat. It sounds "a bit dirtier" than it could. Or you could describe it as "more live." "Dead on" octaves sound rather dead, to my ear. In the higher treble, I expand at a gradually increasing rate, lining up my notes with what is below. I typically have a compromise between beatless 19ths and triple octaves, a little wider on concert instruments. This makes the single octave, especially octaves 6 and 7, have an audible beat of gradually increasing rate. At the top of the piano, C7C8, this can be quite fast. My ear isn't acute enough to count those beats reliably. (The compromises happen mostly with smaller instruments, with relatively large inharmonic breaks. You really notice those breaks when focusing on triple octave versus double octave. I just allow a break to occur (from, say, beatless triple octaves to quite narrow ones), and "follow the mathematical curve" (use the machine's numbers, or, if I'm altering them, alter them about the same amount) until the extra high inharmonicity eases a little higher in the scale. When I tuned entirely aurally, it drove me nuts trying to make things work out. Going from the concert D to the Hamilton was a real exercise in frustration. Knowing the pattern I'm working against, I just go with the flow). Laws of physics don't necessarily coincide with laws of psychology and perception. The Greeks made their temple columns curved so that they would look straight. The question here is "What is the musician listening to?" Is it pureness of octave, or perception of pitch? Granted, at some point one will war enough with the other so that there isn't a good compromise. This is often the case with smaller pianos. There is simply no good middle ground. But I tend, with those smaller pianos, to continue to favor the wider intervals. Yes, the octaves in isolation sound worse, but I think the piano sounds better. The key is consistency - if all octaves sound "the same" (in a very gradual curve), and nothing stands out, the ear will accept it. And I think that, musically, we listen more to wider intervals anyway. Pianists play with both hands, often fairly far apart. We are constantly hearing triple octaves with the single and double mixed in between (just play octaves in both hands, C2C3 with left, C4C5 with right. Fill in chord notes. That's a fairly narrow musical position for a pianist. C2C3 with the left and C5C6 with the right is also a common spacing, reaching a quadruple octave). The sense of the top versus the bottom of that large chord is more important than the single octaves included within it, in that musical context. Plain, unadorned, sustained octaves occur very, very seldom in music. I find that, listening in the audience, I NEVER notice the sound of the beats in those single high octaves, though I can hear them quite clearly while tuning. I hear unisons that are getting a bit iffy, but that's it. What I hear more is relative pitch from bottom to top of the piano. Does my top treble sound sharp? Not to my ear. If anything, it sounds a bit flat (psychologically/perceptually/musically). If our ears can accept ET M3s, they can accept almost anything <G>. I have never had a complaint that I stretched too much. I have occasionally had the opposite complaint over the years and I have responded to it. I would love to see some robust research in this area, using musicians and music lovers. I think we tend to listen to each other too much, and don't ask enough questions of the people we work for. Regards, Fred Sturm University of New Mexico fssturm at unm.edu On Jan 23, 2007, at 8:46 AM, rwest1 at unl.edu wrote: > Fred: > > I agree, but can you characterize/describe how the individual > octaves turn out when you choose to emphasize the wider intervals? > How do the 2:1 octaves beat in the tenor and upper midrange in > order for you to get the expansion you want in the higher octaves? > Are your fifths in the midrange pure? Wider than pure? How much > faster are the tenths when compared with the thirds? > > I guess I'm saying that you can't have it both ways, and I'm > interested in how you would describe what your compromises and > tuning choices do to the octaves in the middle of the piano. For > example, let's take the B4. I assume that you like to hear the G3- > B4 tenth beating faster than the G3-B3 third. How much faster, one > beat, two, more? Would the G3-B4 tenth beat at the same speed as > the A3-C#4 third? How fast will you allow fourths to beat just > above the temperament? > > For arguments sake let's assume this is a concert grand. I think > we'd agree that compromises would be different in an upright or > small grand. Since concert grands are the instruments that provide > the best opportunity to match our theoretical ideas with a real > world instrument, I'd like to get your practical description for > concert grand octaves. > > The reason this topic has been of interest to me for years is > this: We technicians claim that the "artistry" of tuning is a > matter of personal choice. Some people choose wider octaves than > others. On some level I agree. But I also believe that the degree > of choice is a lot narrower than has been described to me over the > years. In other words a good concert tuning doesn't have as much > lattitude for choosing as we've come to believe. Continuing to > promote this long held belief creates confusion, IMHO. After all, > there are certain laws of physics at work here. We wouldn't want > to violate the laws of physics. > > > Richard West > > > > > On Jan 23, 2007, at 8:48 AM, Fred Sturm wrote: > >> On Jan 22, 2007, at 4:31 PM, Porritt, David wrote: >> >>> Fred: >>> >>> >>> >>> I no longer have an SAT. I’ve found TuneLab to be easier to >>> measure as it’s semi-automatic. It needs 4 notes I use 6. It >>> does a good job. Still, I tune from F3 – C8 checking things >>> along the way. When I tune from E3 – A0 I turn off TuneLab when >>> I get to the wrapped strings. I’m much more interested in smooth >>> octaves than compliance to a particular octave size (6:3, 8:4 >>> whatever) or smooth progression of beat rates. It also helps >>> battery life! >>> >>> >>> >>> dave >>> >>> >>> >>> David M. Porritt >>> >>> dporritt at smu.edu >> Hi Dave, >> I still have my SAT as backup, but use RCT. It fits my >> personality better <g>. >> As to octaves, I think we tend to give too much emphasis to the >> sound of the individual octave, rather than focusing on the sound >> of the whole piano. I find that emphasizing wider intervals, like >> 12ths, 19ths, and double/triple octaves, gives an overall sound I >> prefer. The individual octaves are sized to fit within the larger >> intervals. >> Regards, >> Fred Sturm >> University of New Mexico >> fssturm at unm.edu >> >> >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/caut.php/attachments/20070123/a69528bd/attachment.html
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