To ear or not to ear.... was Verituner

[Richard Brekne]

To use or not to... that is the question... seemingly... then comes what 
to use... then comes all the argumentation about the consequences one 
way or the other.

Seems to me this discussion always ends up in a dog fight where people 
start throwing out all these unsavory comments about each others 
opinions, indeed each others ability to have an opinion. All based 
really on ones own reality, and the evident assumption that it is quite 
impossible to experience things significantly differently.... so we make 
all kinds of absolute claims about this affect or that affect totally 
without any real objective criteria or evidence to support the claims 
beyond our own personal experiences.

To discount the potential using a machine has to detrimental affect on a 
tuners ability to tune by ear strikes me as naive at best, foolish at 
second best, and egotistic puke at worst. I could just as easily turn 
that around and say the same about those who out of hand discount the 
potential for positive affect these same have on same. Point being this 
is not a black and white kind of subject.

Your Tuning Ear does not get better unless it is used, and practiced 
with. If you do that with or without an apparatus is of little 
consequence. But if you do not use your ears over long periods of 
time... do not pay attention to what you are hearing... then you should 
not expect your ears to remain just as keenly trained to process the 
information it receives well enough to let the brain do its part.

Given the development of electronic instruments that are meant to, and 
probably will one day, usurp the acoustic piano.. I'm not sure the 
ability of a human to be able to tune by ear is all that important in 
the first place.... that said... if you want to forget how to tune... I 
cant think of a better way to do so then to forget how to use your ears.

Cheers
RicB