SAT in low bass (and bass in general)

[Kent Swafford]

>Many thanks to all who responded to my question about the SAT in the low
>bass.  The responses help me to better understand what's going on down
>there.  Maybe there's a cue for Dr. Sanderson to step in with some kind of
>modification that takes into consideration the pecularities of the low bass
>strings.
>
>Ted Simmons, Merritt Island, FL

     Well, one "modification" that might be possible would be for there
to be a visual tuning device that could read more than one partial at a
time.  This way, the display of the two partials could be such that if
the pitch of the string was so far off that, for example, the fifth
partial was being read instead of the correct sixth, the other partial
would display a groos error or nothing at all, providing a tip-off that
there was something wrong.  Such a dual-partial display is probably
technologically possible.  One can hope.

     I would like to point out that tuning to the incorrect partial in
the bass is not a phenomenon that is limited to visual tuning.  In 1982 I
took over a position as piano technician for a large public school
system.  The previous technician was retiring and was there to show me
around for a couple weeks.  We went to a school and I tuned a Mason &
Hamlin grand while the old gentleman listened.  When I got to the bass, I
discovered that all the single string unisons in the bass had been tuned
a third low.  He had tuned the 7th partial as the sixth, and did it
aurally.  He tuned the strong 7th partial of the lower note to the third
partial of the note an octave higher, creating the rather unique 7:3
octave!  I'll never forget the expression on his face as I raised those
notes.  I've found the same mistake on a few other pianos since, tuned by
others, not the old gentleman at the school system.

     You can catch these gross mistakes by playing parallel octaves _and_
the chromatic scale.  Between the two you can't much go wrong -- the
octaves will beat wildly and the scale won't sound like a scale.

Kent Swafford