Virgil's naturaL beats

[Farrell]

I have been reading this thread with interest. I have a thought. When we
learn aural tuning techniques, we start by learning to hear beats - at first
we may not even be aware of them. Then we start to pick the beats apart and
try to be able to hear individual partials. Then we try to hear some (or
one) partials and not others. We get good at this (or at least some do - I'm
still trying), some of us get to a professional level with this skill. We
get to a point where that is all we hear. I have heard many technicians that
go to a concert say that all they can hear is the piano tuning - how these
intervals and those intervals sound - and that they have trouble hearing the
music. I believe to one degree or another this is common.

In a former life I was a geologist. Same thing. I would go to a scenic
majestic mountain and most folks would sit in awe of the snow-capped beauty
or beautiful colors, etc., and I would sit down and stare at grain
structures or metamorphic strain patterns and might miss the beauty of the
whole. I suppose same thing in most any technical profession where we study
a "thing" is detail.

Is it possible that Virgil has developed an ability - a skill - where he can
hear beats and partials like the best of tuners, but also be able to go back
to the level of the non-tuner and hear the strings being struck by hammers -
in a very controlled and technically-knowing way? I struggle with my aural
tuning skills on a continual basis. Hearing various partials is not a
natural thing for me to be able to do. I have to really concentrate and work
hard at it. If I don't do that (and I often do a lot of my tuning in my
"technically-relaxed" mode) - I can tune octaves perfectly beatless. Could
this be what Virgil is doing - only in a controlled, purposeful manner
(rather than due to a lack of skill)? If so, he is using his highly
developed aural tuning skills, and combining them with what the common folk
in the audience hear (but likely in a technically-aware form) to take a
tuning out beyond a technically "great" tuning to another level.

I really don't have a clue - because my skills are a tad shakey. Could I be
on the right track?

Terry Farrell
Piano Tuning & Service
Tampa, Florida
mfarrel2@tampabay.rr.com

----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Brekne" <Richard.Brekne@grieg.uib.no>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Sunday, February 11, 2001 5:44 AM
Subject: Re: Virgil's naturaL beats


>
>
> "Jim Coleman, Sr." wrote:
>
> > Hi to all:
> >
> > Paul Revenko-Jones' post on Virgil's phenomena has stimulated me to
> > thinking that maybe Virgil really has something here. Virgil and I are
> > good friends and for over 20 years he has been trying to help me
> > understand his view of what he hears. I continue to trip over his use of
> > the word beatless, but now I'm thinking that there may be a sense in
> > which he does hear something beatless. I would like to get the HT people
> > involved in this discussion at this point, because there seems to be
> > something akin to this in the equal-beating scheme of historical tunings
> > which gives the impression of no beats when actually there are beats.
> >
> > I have heard the HT people say that when there are proportional beatings
> > in a temperament chord, the beatings counteract one another.
>
> I was thinking along similiar lines last night Jim... Bill Bremmer is
often
> on about a "canceling out" effect when tuning unisions. Perhaps we are
> dealing with something along those lines. We are dealing with a lot of
> partials intereracting when playing the two notes in an octave. Even if we
> consider only the most predominant coicidents there is an awfull lot going
> on. I liked Keiths comment about including (or at least not discounting)
the
> contribution of non-coincidents to the "whole" in this regard.
>
> I cant help but think that there must be something measureable about all
> this. Its like if you can hear it and utilize it as consistantly as it
would
> seem our colleague Virgil does... then some how or another it should be
able
> to pick up via our ETD's... or perhaps some not yet thought of variant of
> todays ETDs. Yet another reason for moving towards multipartial displays
in
> todays ETD's.
>
>
> > What say
> > you, Ed Foote, Bill Bremmer, Paul Bailey, Owen Jorgensen? Could Virgil
be
> > saying something which you all recognize as one of the benefits of equal
> > beating HT's? Let's try to pursue this without the personalities issues
> > coming up.
> >
> > Jim Coleman, Sr.
>
> I am curioius to how Virgil deals with rouge partials... ie really bad
> sounding para inharmonicities.
>
>
>
> --
> Richard Brekne
> RPT, N.P.T.F.
> Bergen, Norway
> mailto:Richard.Brekne@grieg.uib.no
>
>
>