inharmonicity and "Re: newbie questions: stretching"

Newton Hunt nhunt@optonline.net
Wed, 14 Feb 2001 18:14:53 -0500


> degree in inharmonicity would not differ in the treble side among different models.

Sorry, inh DOES vary but a very small change in speaking length makes
a huge difference in inh.  

> I tried to make a point that you cannot hear by ear how much inharmonicity there is.

True to a point.  Once understanding inh and stretch and how it
effects double and triple octaves I know what I am dealing with.  That
is experience coupled with understanding the effects of inh.  That
will come with time.

> The stretch you can put up on above that is what you can try to hear.

Doing more or less stretch than the piano calls for is difficult for
me as an aural tuner but I can do it easily with an EDT.  I am very
easily confused so don't confuse me, please.

> In the bass I try to do it but in the end:
> checking myself by ear, I don't believe I do it
> (Though stretching can be very healthy).

If it is a good sounding bass you stretch.  There can be no
questioning of that.  How MUCH you stretch is an issue that will keep
us tuners stretching our heads for ever and three days.  If you do not
stretch the bass octaves the bass will sound constrained and
constipated.  If it sounds free and open you are stretching.  I may
stretch more or less than you do but that is a matter of taste and
opinion not of science.

There is an effect of stretch where the octave becomes louder than at
any other setting.  This "power point" is very narrow and one has to
move the tuning hammer very small amounts to find it but once you have
hard this occur you will search for it in every tuning.  The effect is
of the beginning of a beat that never resolves itself into a beat
because the sustain does not remain long enough for it to resolve into
a beat.  You know that out of tune unisons sound louder than in tune
unisons.  The same is true for octaves so I intentionally use this
effect to find that narrow point where I can create a louder octave
with a beat that is too slow to hear.  It is a matter of phasing.  You
can tune two strings so they sound loud and then change one string and
you can make the sound diminish.  This is a matter of the two strings
being in phase and then out of phase.  It is this phenomenon that I
use in octave tuning and the octaves are stretched by a considerable
amount.  I have had other tuners tell me they like more and others
have said they liked less stretch.  The difference is a difference in
esthetics not quality of tuning.

So there.  Now you have ME confused.

Regards,

		Newton


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