Electronic/Aural Tunig

Allen Leigh allen@mail.pengar.com
Sat, 23 Dec 1995 15:19:34 +0000


Quite a few comments have been made about using the SAT for showing
people how flat their piano is.  I have a small hand-held electronic tuner that
I use for this purpose.  I don't remember the name of the tuner, but
it cost about $50 and is accurate to 1 cent.  It automatically
displays the note, and a meter needle shows the amount of flatness or
sharpness; it is calibrated in plus/minus 50 cents from the note
shown on the device.  I explain that the word CENT shown on the meter
is perCENT of a halfstep (nice that we have 100 cents in a half
step!).

Most of my tunings are old pianos that haven't been tuned for quite a
few years, and many of them need pitch raising.  The first thing I do
when I enter the home is to use the hand-held to check the piano.  If
it does need a pitch raising before the fine tuning, I have the
person come to the piano and I explain how the hand-held works.  They
see the display for a number of notes and the indications of how flat
the piano is.  They quickly accept the fact that their piano needs a
rough tuning to raise the pitch.  The hand-held is a nice way to
check a piano; of course, I don't use it for tuning.

/Allen



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