pitch at A4 vs time

[Ron Nossaman]

>
>Some tentative conclussions from this preliminary data:
>
>1. listening to the *after ring* is more beneficial to the tuner.
>2. after 3 seconds there is *very* little difference in pitch
>3. after 6 seconds there is virtually no difference.
>4. interesting to see how pitch rose as time increased when 3 strings were
>interacting from second 2 to second 3.
>

First, the disclaimers:
1. Being an aural tuner, I don't own an ETD. 
2. Lacking an ETD, I can't generate any numbers with which to confuse myself
and others.
3. Tuning discussions are bottomless pits, with or without numbers, and I
generally try to minimize my participation in same.

That said, here's my take. For me, and for the beginning tuners who gave me
benefit of the doubt enough to try it, most of what is relevant to tuning
happens in the first half second of the attack. After that, all sorts of
coupling, blending, false beat, and sympathetic noise pollution obscures and
complicates what I am hearing. I feel that all new tuners, and too many
"used" ones, are tuning in the wrong part of the envelope. I find I tune
much faster and cleaner when I keep hammering instead of striking and tuning
through the decay, especially doing unisons. When you are aurally checking
thirds and sixths progressions (ET), how many (total) beats do you hear
before moving on to the next interval? I'd guess maybe three or four. That's
about a half second each. And that's on the check! The new tuners sometimes
have trouble picking out what they should be hearing, and tend to listen to
too much of the post-attack junk. When I can talk them into hammering a
little faster and tuning while they are hammering, instead of between blows,
they are generally surprised at how much simpler the process is. They are
also generally pleased with the results and the speed at which they are
achieved. Their tuning stability improves too because they are getting
better aural verification on pin and string setting, but that's another
issue. The more experienced tuners already know what to listen for, and
where to listen for it but still sometimes spend too much time listening
instead of hammering. I catch myself doing this occasionally when I'm
thinking about something else and tuning on auto pilot and have to come back
to consciousness and get on with it.   

This isn't a crusade, you understand (no armor, no weaponry, no Holy
mission), it's just a personal observation, the merits of which are either
obvious or not. We do what works for us. It just seems to me that there are
relatively few three second + sustains in the music we listen to, so why
'dwell' in the decay when tuning?
 
 Ron Nossaman