aural tradition takes a hit

[Richard Brekne]

Ed Foote writes:

> The aural tradition has taken the biggest hit in the history
> of tuning during the last 12 years, and it is solely due to the
> programmable tuning  machine.  In formal comparisons, the best of
> the best, (Coleman and Smith)  have demonstrated that tuners
> cannot reliably tell the difference between the  two.

This keeps comming up and is used consitistantly to make points it has
not enough scope in itself to make. The statement that tuners today
"cannot reliably tell the difference between the  two" is both
incomplete in terms of the testing of its degree of truth, and even if
shown to be true says nothing about why they are not able to.

It is claimed that 100 years ago tuners could not hear what was
neccessary to tune a true ET at all. Yet they learned to do so. And the
advent of the machine has by all accounts refined further the aural
skills of many.  It may very well be that much of why so many tuners
have not been able to discern such differences such as the above
mentioned has more to do with an awareness of what to listen for, and a
refinement of the skills neccessary. The same can be said for similar
comments made about pianists and HT vs ET.

As far as I can see, the "experiments" taken so far have only scratched
at the surface of this general issue, and by no means lend conclusive
evidence to much of what is being claimed. Rather, these queries raise
far more questions of interest then they answer.

JMV

RicB


--
Richard Brekne
RPT, N.P.T.F.
UiB, Bergen, Norway
mailto:rbrekne@broadpark.no
http://home.broadpark.no/~rbrekne/ricmain.html