Cracking the unisons

[william ballard]

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On Jan 6, 2006, at 12:47 PM, David Andersen wrote:
> Hey, Bill---to me, pitch shimming is synonymous with cracking a  
> unison:  making micro-incremental pitch shifts in a 3 string note;

Agreed. Same process whether fine or coarse. I've just never used it  
during the temperament. It's always been much more suited for  
interval tuning (say, laying out the octaves once the temperament is  
done), because there the task is much simpler. There's a note whose  
turn it is to be tuned, and a note (or notes) already tuned to get  
the pitch of the new note.

Temperament is a different kettle of fish, because although the  
chromatic steps in the temperament compass are being tuned serially,  
the judgement as to the success of the temperament doesn't come until  
all notes in the temperament are in place.

Yeah, I know. You can make a very good case that laying out the rest  
of the keyboard by octaves needs the "gestalt", the overall ensemble  
of notes just as much as the central temperament. But the extent to  
which that case is real-world instead of academic is not that great.  
What I mean by that is you can go a lot farther in octave tuning  
where each new note is based on only one already tuned note, than you  
can in temperament tuning.

Which is why, unless the piano is being tuned a couple of times a  
week, when it comes temperament time, I use a temperament strip.  
Above the temperament, it's single mute tuning. And it could be down  
in the bass just as easily, I just have yet to try it.

Your article and this thread tell me it's time to toss the strip  
away. (On a piano that's already nearly in tune, at least.

> I think experienced tuners start doing it unconsciously at some  
> point, but it never really blossomed for me as a foundational  
> tuning tool until I threw my felt strip away and started tuning  
> unisons fully on the fly---open-string tuning.

I'd still expect to hear of more people doing it. Like hundreds. So  
far it's Virgil, you and me.

> Now, 5 years later, I literally sculpt and balance the temperament  
> by very fast and precise shimming of the unisons---

After five years, your an old hand at it. The other thing which  
bothers me about muteless temperament tuning, the other difference  
between temperament and octave tuning is that, in temperament tuning,  
setting the new note maybe based on an interval which isn't  
necessarily being brought to pure (say a P12 or a 6:3 octave) but an  
interval which will have a beat rate (say adjusting the new note so  
its 5:4 beat rate as part of M3d is adjusted from x.5 bps to y bps).  
The arithmetic behind shimming is based on erasing a beat rate  
entirely. To move from x.5 to y, the shimming has to equal x.5-y, and  
nothing in entire x.5 of y will tell you what x.5-y is.

Of course it's by the seat of the pants, right-brained, intuitively,  
as is alot of high end piano work. And its time for me to toss my  
strip away.

BTW, David, I like your description of sculpting a temperament very  
much, like kneading together a landscape in clay.

Cheers.

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

"Talking about music is like dancing about architecture"
     ...........Steve Martin
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