Hi, Thanks everyone for your responses! It is interesting to hear other people's experiences and approaches. I can't say I experience what Terry said, maybe I'm misunderstanding. I am a pianist and studied tuning with a local RTP so I could tune for myself - I was tired of playing/practising on off-tune pianos! I never really had the opportunity to see what I thought of stretched vs. non-beatless octaves before my ear was more "educated" to such things. However, I can say now that a beatless octave in the high treble or low bass doesn't sound flat or sharp to me - quite the opposite, particularly in the low bass. - John > The question is what do you mean by perfectly? If you have a measuring > device that allows for direct measurement, such as a SAT III, tune an > octave pure at the 4:2 level, then measure the same two notes at the > 6:3 > level, or the 8:4 level. You will find that not all of the coincident > partials will be "perfectly" tuned. In other words, there is no such > things as perfectlly tuned octave. How clean the octaves sound is > another > matter and I admit to a preference for cleaner sounding octaves such > that > when you play A2, A3, A4, A5 together, for example, you don't hear > much of > a roll unless you linger there for awhile. Still, if measured at > certain > partials, the octaves would measure at less than perfect. The piano > generally tells you (if you listen, of course) where it wants to be and > even if you are using an ETD, it is important to determine by ear just > what > kind of octaves will work best for a particular piano, that is, how > much > stretch is appropriate. > > David Love <and> > John, I'd wager you are accustomed to listening only to a subset of the > partials that are being generated by the octaves. There is no perfect > octave > tuning - one must choose which partials one will use. For example, C1 > and C2 > have common partials at C2, C3, G3, C4, E4, G4, C5 etc. and it is not > possible, as far as I know, for any two of these partials to both be > tuned > perfectly in the octave. If you are listening to the C2 partial, you > are > tuning 2:1 octaves, if you are listening to C3 you are setting 4:2 > octaves, > G3 - 6:3 octaves, C4 - 8:2 octaves (unlikely) etc. > It would be good for you to identify which octave type you prefer by > finding > out which tests validate the octaves you prefer. <and> > The high treble and low bass octaves, when tuned beatless or nearly > beatless, STILL have a degree of "natural" stretch. The ear "hears" > these areas as flat and sharp respectavely if NOT somehwhat stretched, > especially when arpeggios are played. > > Terry Peterson
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