>>Very likely, as accurate as necessary to more than satisfy most folks.
>
>You've got to remember, there are people who enjoy accordians.
Yes, and okra. Oddly enough though, while I've gotten many requests to play
a little something after a tuning, no one has mentioned "Lady of Spain" so
far. But it's early yet, so I suppose there's still time.
>Buy 'em like fonts from QRS. Or buy a utility of convert a
>spreadsheet file and make ('n'trade) your own.
Yep - temperament foundry - roll your own and collect them all. It's easy,
and anyone can play.
>The ingenious part in this system is the rapid conversion of the
>analog signal (amperage in the wires) to digital. Once digital,
>Yamaha's new technology comes into play, the midi/firewire DisKlavier
>Mark VI. The amperage in the piano wire directly drives the real-time
>digital waveform which can be supplied to the workstation on the OS
>of your choice. A giant step forward for mankind, that ability to
>plug your digital effects apps directly into a real live, organic
>waveform. At least a great step forward for computer gamers.
Yea, we futurists laugh at sound checks, stage lights, and the concert on
the veranda when the sun comes out. The piano knows what to do, we just
stands ourselves back and tries to stay out of the way. It don't hurt none
to carry an extra fuse or two though, just in case.
>>Slide piano, anyone - or is that just
>>another bottleneck? <G>
>
>Don't laugh, there are trombonists for whom the slide is an bottle-neck.
Ah yes, an allusion to a guitar fetish I played with for a while at one
point. Nothing serious - just an attempt to "Muddy" the "Waters" a tad.
Found I was more suited in talent and temperament to hunkering over a
snooker table, but it's all a matter of how you slice it in the end. That
too has since passed, as well as the guitar efforts. Pity, I thoroughly
enjoyed both.
>I too, read the entire article in the recent PTJ. It's clear that
>nobody involved in the project has spent too much time in a piano
>factory, or out in the service market. Once their first prototypes
>get out there for two/three years of being thermally tuned and played
>uponst, the wire set will have sagged/stretched enough that the 50¢
>tuning load he calculated would have to be used just to reach upwards
>to A440. "Couple tree years, it might be more than 50¢ flat, in its
>ambient and unelectrified state. Even with regular "plug-in
>tunings", there ought to be at least that much stretch in the fresh
>wire to make A440 a real long reach for that ambient/off pitch.
>
>Sure I'm impressed, a 50¢ pitch raise and fine tuning in under 2
>minutes, and it gets you a nice little radiator for those cold, damp
>March afternoons besides. But if you do some heavy lifting, like
>150-200¢ pitch raises, does the wattage go up geometrically or
>exponentially. Is there a fire hazard, and can we be sure the
>background radiation coming with the predominant InfraRed does not
>cause brain tumors? He didn't mention whether it had its UL-listing
>yet.
My first thought (OK, maybe my second) was that this electrofucatin can
only LOWER the pitch. There's nothing in the system that can raise it
except the service guy who comes around every five or ten years to sweep
the chunks off of the soundboard and pull the piano above pitch. You've got
to have someone of both extraordinary fortitude, and an unusual capacity to
generate enormous clouds of apparent legitimacy to take on this sort of
thing. I think (I think) maybe the brain tumors come with the job,
regardless of the medium. We's all susceptible, nevermindedness of our
association with self tuning, self tunable, or tuning challenged pianos.
Still, it might just work better that we would normally expect.
>That's when, the regional airport limo brings in the Factory Re-Tuner
>(accept not substitutes), to do a manual tuning (again, locked upon
>completion). That might be official Rolls Royce Service, but I hope
>that the Story&Clark itself is Roll Royce enough to reward the new
>owners. I hopethe piano is up to the challenge. I wish them luck. I
>don't know what the market is for such a self-tuner, but maybe it'll
>get National Piano Month back on Geraldo.
Hey, most anything can be improved (at least perceptually), by being tuned
daily. Seems to me that I regularly read something to the affect that
pianos of questionable pedigree and indefensible design philosophy are
being made less bad to the point of being acceptable under narrowly defined
specific circumstances by the repeated application of service at a rate far
beyond that indicated by the condition and potential of the piano. Maybe
it's just a matter of perspective.
>I'm actually not worried by the thought of this new labor-saving
>(that's us, mind you) device. Take In Vitro Fertilization. We've had
>it for 10, 15 years. But I don't see any sign that the general
>population, even after seeing the clear advantages of IVF, has
>gleefully abandoned the time-honored (and honored in the breach)
>conception ritual for this "we'll-call-you-when-it's-ready" service.
Well, good sense has been around in limited quantity for a good long while
too, but doesn't seem to have been all that enthusiastically embraced by
the general populace to date, so there's a finite chance that we just might
not be looking at the right thing here. Or not.
>Tuning? It really does take a good human being and a good piano. Same
>with the Marines.
>
>Bill Ballard RPT
>NH Chapter, P.T.G.
Looking for a few good notes....
Ron N
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