What do you listen

[Isaac OLEG SIMANOT]

Hello,

I have a question for you .

I am often tuning grand pianos for concert service (S&S). There are 4 other
tuners so we all follow one by one.

Each one have his own sound that makes me think they listen differently to
the piano when they tune ( they play differently too of course).

With time I became good for "blend" my tuning in the last tuning done on the
piano, and so I had to vary the way I was listening, to keep my unissons in
phase with what was on before (most of the time in the morning the same day)

The Yamaha concert tuners showed me how to listen in the sound "oh" at the
"top" of the note, so I can tune as they do.

One of our tuners have a sound wich projects very well and another have a
sound that lasts long, another one have a very brillant/lively sound (but
not good projection BMO), and another one have a somewhat dark sound on the
mellow side, where the attack is contained.

So , what do you listen for :


A	A precise attack ? renforced, or erased ?
B	The max power ?
C	The longuer sound (sustain)?
D	The max Dwell time (after attack when the sound goes in a rebound)?
E	The projection sound (far away from you)?
F	The strenght of high partials ?
G	The strenght of fondamental ?

Personnally I like a strong  sound with immediate power in the middle of the
keyboard then I try progressively to blend the dwell in the sustain in the
treble, so there is life in my note, (life but not a beat). I don't like a
too rigid sound .
As I work mostly on recent pianos we have all that possibilities, of course
on older instruments, we may sometime use some artifice so the listener
thinks he is hearing a lively sound. A more explosive attack is one of them
( plastic on the top of the hammer ) letting the beat goes on (!) is another
(but I don't like this one too much)

I hope this makes sense !


Thks for your earstorming.

Isaac OLEG