C=256 hz? Heads up? Not bloody likely

Andrew and Rebeca Anderson anrebe@sbcglobal.net
Tue, 18 Oct 2005 09:21:33 -0500


David,

One would have to walk a fine line when disparaging an exciting idea 
that a customer has latched on to. ;-)  Acknowledging the vagaries of 
history and that politics are never really "clean" and then moving on 
to practical impacts would make sense.  One is that a lot of wind 
instruments need modification for such a pitch.  The other is about 
ear-training and being able to comfortably perform in the majority of 
venues.  Etc. ...

My question has more to do with piano design.  Say you have a 
customer who insists on a ~10 cent low tuning.  How does scale design 
impact this?  Can you get a reasonably resonant piano out of this 
without re-scaling?

Obviously beat rates used for aural tuning would be slower, you would 
be looking for progression rather than certain rates.  An ETD would 
probably be the avenue of choice for the "odd" one that comes our way.

Any other ideas.

I think I can head this one off from becoming a reality on an 
instrument, or at least turn it into an expensive experiment. :-D

Andrew


At 08:35 AM 10/18/2005, you wrote:
>Andrew -
>At least Mr. LaR---che's imprimatur is relatively visible in this 
>endeavor, as opposed to the unseen hand in many others. I wonder if 
>you could wade through the Schiller site...no don't stop just at 
>tuning, run through Mr. LaR---che's economic, scientific, and 
>political theories as well...and then get back to us.   Reading LaR 
>can, I suppose, provide hours of speculative amusement, trying to 
>separate fact from raving.  I think of it as playing at the edge of 
>a black hole.  With this group as with Scientologists, I remain 
>relatively paranoid.  It's like the Harry Potter stories.  They 
>should simply be referred to as "you know who"s.  I would not want 
>to see any extended discussion of this man's ideas on this list, 
>public as it is, unless someone with impeccable credentials took the 
>time to de-mythify the extensive claims.   The truth is, the history 
>of tuning has always been a struggle, and political, and subjective, 
>if not arbitrary.
>
>As far as a response to a request for such tuning, the issues as 
>they affect structure, tone and stability, should be discussed 
>totally apart from any connection to these tuning theories.  It 
>makes no difference what the origination of the request might be.
>
>David Skolnik
>
>
>
>At 07:21 AM 10/18/2005 -0500, you wrote:
>>Fellow tuners,
>>I had this sent me: http://www.schillerinstitute.org/music/revolution.html
>>
>>We've probably been aware of this for some time.  Question is, has 
>>anyone been impacted by this, especially in requests for 
>>historic/"sensible" tunings pitches?
>>
>>Andrew
>
>and
>>Wouldn't moving a piano 10 hz lower to circa A4=430 hz result in a 
>>loss of resonant power?  It seems to me that you would have to 
>>re-scale a piano to the target pitch if you chose to lower it like 
>>that.  What would be your response to such a request?
>>
>>Andrew
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>pianotech list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives



This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC