tuning narrow and wide

[Tony Caught]

Hi Ron,

I thank you for explaining what I am trying to say.

I accept that tuning can and is a complex subject but to the person that
tunes only by ear there is no sharpening or flattening, there is only what
is right.
You set a scale in accordance to a piano, you tune up then down to the scale
you set.
True, in some instances when tuning up, you may prefer to tune your fifth's
pure and be sharp. or tune you fifth's to roll and be slightly flat but the
end result in the treble is generally OK Maybe a difference on C8 of 5 to 10
cents. but when you start going down on a poorly scaled piano you notice
immediately that you have a problem so you sort it out using a combination
of methods to level out the sudden jump in inharmonicity. (At times I have
gone back to the scale and readjusted two or three notes to make things
cleaner, ( then retuned the notes in the treble)) Then it should be plain
sailing but it isn't. You tune the bass by octaves then check by fifths,
double octaves and octave + 1 fifth, and balance these out and you will wind
up with a decent sounding bass. But this is still all based on the origonal
scale that is set and that is the way it should be.

To deviate from this standard (variations accepted) is not in my opinion a
good practice. To allow a machine to say " Hey my C1 inharmonicity is way,
way, out, so you have to tune the piano with a scale that will accept me and
to hell with every other note." is not good.

So I guess that the correct way to tune a piano is still by ear. Or maybe
the Verituner will solve the problem. ?

In America when you sit for a tuning exam, can you do the exam on a Yamaha
U1 piano ?, when the piano is checked do the examiners write down the cents
for each note of the piano ?. If so, then is there available a list
somewhere of the the cents for each note of the piano that is deemed as
being correct (subject to verification by ear) ?.

I would like to find this list to see if you can actually set a Computer
based tuning program up to match these readings.

An impossible task ?

Regards

Tony Caught
Adelaide Australia
caute@bigpond.com.au



> 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
>
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