[CAUT] CAUT testing model

[Fred Sturm]

On 10/25/07 3:06 PM, "Kent Swafford" <kswafford at gmail.com> wrote:

> Concert tunings are "no excuses" situations, in just the same way that the
> pianist's performance will likely be "no excuses." People depend upon us to
> produce a presentable tuning, no matter what, in the time available, under the
> conditions that prevail, regardless of any adversity. Concert tuning is about
> continuously deciding what will yield the biggest improvement given the time
> and resources available. "Taking a little extra time and trouble to make sure
> we got it as good as possible" is what you do in your other tunings when time
> is plentiful, to _prepare_ for concert work, so that you will know what it
> takes to produce a certain result efficiently. Concert tuning, in my
> experience, doesn't exist absent a certain level of stress. (You can look in
> the archives for my description of tuning for Olga Kern, for example.)
> 
> So, with tongue in cheek, I would suggest that in formulating this test, don't
> forget that you will need to simulate normal stage activities such as loading
> in the artist's equipment, setting lights, putting the shell in place,
> checking the sound system, vacuuming the carpet in the aisles of the hall,
> mopping the stage, the artist's request to voice down the high treble and
> regulate the pedal to an unusual spec, and for good measure, the stage manager
> walking up and notifying the tech that his time has been cut short by 15
> minutes because the artist wants to warm up, and, oh, the artist asks that you
> do an extra special fine concert tuning tonight.
> 
> All in a day's work, right?
> 
> Kent

    Tongue in cheek or not, It is certainly our reality that the fairly
standard window for getting the ³concert tuning² done is one hour (and
circumstances dictate that it is often less). And I think there is a general
expectancy that this can happen in the ³real world² - as, for instance, when
touring groups come to town, and that is what they expect to schedule for
the local piano tuner in their setup time. We (Don, Ken and I) certainly
took that as our starting assumption in modeling a test. We thought that,
practically speaking, we should probably expand the time to 1.5 hours, given
that the test piano would be unfamiliar, and thinking I suppose that there
would be resistance to setting ³too high a standard.²  And I guess I¹ll also
throw out the notion that too tight a window might be too much of a burden
on our colleagues who are ³aural purists,² including our esteemed colleagues
at U Michigan. But personally I would have no problem with narrowing the
window to one hour, to reflect the ³boots on the ground² reality.
    Where I would have a problem is if narrowing the window of time was
accompanied by weakening the standard of quality, as in the notion expressed
by at least a couple of people: ³give them X time and see how much of an
improvement they can make.² I think the attitude underlying such an approach
is counterproductive. It assumes that we endorse understaffing. It assumes
that fast and sloppy is okay, and preferable to somewhat slower but very
high quality.
    Given a choice of someone who is a bit slower, but can be counted on to
produce meticulous work, and someone who is really fast but produces
unreliable work that is ³almost good enough all the time,² I¹ll take the
slower one. As an organization, I think we need to stand for top quality,
professional quality, state of the art. I have the distinct impression that
³concert quality² tuning across the country is at a pretty high level, based
on concerts I have attended, Performance Today broadcasts (recent public
performances at all kinds of venues around the world, including fairly
obscure universities and colleges and performance venues) and recordings. My
ears tell me that a standard of unisons (and stability, as it lasts through
the performance) well within 1.0 cents is the norm. I hear some voicing I
think really ought to be improved, but by and large the tuning quality is
very high indeed for the most part. There is a very noticeable difference
between unisons averaging within 0.5 cents (or so) and unisons averaging
within 1.0 cents (or so).
    So I want to argue very strongly that whatever else we may do in terms
of setting a standard for ³caut tuning,² we should stick to as narrow a
unison standard as we can, bearing practical and political hurdles in mind.
I¹d be interested in hearing responses to this specific position.
Regards,
Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico


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