Ears vs machines (Was Tuning forks)

[Kent Swafford]

Doug  Hershberger wrote:

>   This brings me to another thought I had. During the supertuning of the
>exam piano there is suppose to be at least three people doing it. At least
>one CTE and two RPT's. I think this is the way it is set-up and I am sure
>someone will correct me if I'm wrong. If this is true, then I also wonder,
>if two of those examiners use ETD's and there is one aural tuner and he or
>she disputes some aspect of the tuning I doubt that the two people using
>ETD's are going to be the ones outvoted about said disputed note.

All CTE's have passed the exam at 90 or above on all sections tuning 
strictly aurally.

The rules governing master tunings are explicit; the ears rule, and VTD's 
may not be used as the final arbiter. VTD's are used during master 
tunings for the preliminary tuning, and to record alternate pitch levels 
for given notes of the tuning. That is, if there are differences of 
opinion about how a given note is to be tuned, each person is given the 
opportunity to tune the note, and the VTD is used to record the tuning so 
it can be restored if necessary once the ideal tuning for the note has 
been agreed upon. In the even that the three tuners cannot agree upon the 
proper tuning of a given note, the rules say that the VTD readings for 
the different tunings are to be averaged; I personally have never seen 
this happen.

Kent