Tuning Basics WAS: A Small Equation = inharmonicity??

[Bill Ballard]

Michael,

Please notice the thread change.

At 7:08 PM +0100 10/12/03, Michael Gamble wrote:
>Many thanks for your detailed explanation - as requested. The ETD I used for
>bringing the pianos up to pitch is not the one I use for tuning CF3  or
>Model D. Then I use an arm/leg job called  TLA tuning set CTS-5 made by Marc
>Vogel, Germany.

In this country, I would have guessed a Korg chromatic tuner. If 
these two machines are similar, the parallax error would be the least 
of your problems.

>I only use this set for one 8ve., listening at the 1/3,
>1/4,1/5, correcting by ear any discrepancy from a smoothe decrease in the
>major 1/3 beat rates as I go down the keyboard. This so called "smoothe"
>decrease is, of course, equally tempered.

Does the machine's temperament sound better on some pianos than 
others? Are octaves among the things thus tempered, or is the 
give&take, the smoothing, between intervals concerned mainly with the 
intervals smaller than an octave?

>Then I turn the machine off and
>the rest is done by ear. Going down first and then up to the top. At the
>bottom I use 1/10 extensively - I can stretch a 1/10 quite comfortably. At
>the top end I make much use of 1/15, but I have to admit my span is not that
>large.

This gets real interesting. By the 1/15, are you saying an interval 
of 1:15 in which the fundamental of the outside note (higher in the 
treble, lower in the bass) is in unison with the 15th partial of the 
inside note. That lies between the 1:14 (double the span of a 1:7 
interval, or three octaves and a mi7th) and the 1:16 (the quadruple 
octave).

Considering that the quadruple octave of C8 is down at C4. your top 
ocatve would seem to be nailing its pitch to some high partial of a 
not in the 3d octaves, and going on downwards. Considering that  on 
most grands, you're still in the tenor at C3. No better place to 
study inharmonicity.

>I use just one wedge - quite enough - and tune the whole tri-cord as
>I go. I've developed my "Quadrant System" along the same lines and test my
>results by it as I go. You soon train the ear to detect variations in beat
>rate from the norm.

I agree (although if the piano isn't already at pitch, you need to 
put it there, to do true one-wedge work).

>So I do NOT rely on that machine, but on my ears. It is the end result which
>matters. Although I do now, for purposes of speed, use the machine for just
>one 8ve., I rely entirely on a developed "sixth sense" to tell me if
>anything goes awry. So in this respect my tuning is not scientific but
>artistic. After all, the pianist who uses the piano does it for artistic
>reasons.

What happens when you use that sixth sense to do your own 
temperament? As you know, it's all the same kind of smoothing, albeit 
compressed in a small span. Or do you in general let the machine do 
the temperament.

>There I now rest my case. I use a large canvas photographers bag as
>a case and it weighs a ton...

Nice segue, BTW. It's a pleasure to meet you.

Bill Ballard RPT
NH Chapter, P.T.G.

"A man who tells the truth is bound to be found out sooner or later."
     ...........Uncle Harry in "The Tailor of Panama"
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