Tony added to David's response: >I'm sorry, I'm coming in on the middle; what measurements? INHARMONICITY MEASUREMENTS. > > >> From this one would assume that the narrowing and widening of a piano = > > should only happen above and below those notes. > > <snip> >I don't agree with this at all; in my world, everything is stretched. YES, EVERYTHING IS STRETCHED. BUT MY QUESTION IS FROM WHAT snip Ok, what starts out as simple quickly gets more confusing as we try to get more precise. I think what Tony was first pointing out as narrow and wide referred to a tuning chart. The numbers there aren't really inharmonicity measurments, they are cents measurements when compared to the mathematical model of tuning. The first step is to realize that because of inharmonicity, any piano needs to be tuned wide of the mathematical model, which doubles frequency to get to the next octave. (110, 220, 440, 880....) How much wider depends on both the piano AND the tuner. In the chart that he had, he noticed that the middle of the piano's tuning remained the same, while the ends were shifted sharper or flatter to achieve the narrow or wide tuning style. The second step is to realize that there are different amounts of stretch in each range of the piano that are percieved as acceptable by different technicians. Because in most pianos, there is a range of where the octave is percieved as beatless, there are varying conflicting published methods for testing an octave. (4ths=5ths, 4ths >5ths, 3rd=10th, 3rd<10th) The people that developed the machines realized this variation of tuner preference and came up with different methods to customize the machine to the technician. RCT has different OTS numbers, SAT has the double octave beat control, Tunelab uses graphs to predict beat rates, as RCT can. Even the 'lowly' Korg tuner had variable stretches built in to the M1200, similar to the Peterson, giving the tuner some options to try and match the machine to the piano to the technician's preferences. I used the term 'organic' to represent a tuning style where the 10ths will beat faster than the 3rds, as suggested by Virgil Smith. Maybe 'resonent' would be a better choice, because the result of this kind of tuning adds a resonence, suggesting a tuned duplex effect as the upper, unmuted strings match what is being generated below. Some of the Verituner users have been able to experience this, using the custom styles to allow the piano to dictate the stretch based on varying setpoints and balancing of octave types. Ron Koval Chicagoland _________________________________________________________________ Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
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