MY ETD IS MADE BY SIEMENS-- IT'S CALLED A HEARING AID

[william ballard]

On Mar 17, 2006, at 11:19 PM, RON MAY, RPT wrote:
> I received my second hearing aid about 6 months ago. I am a 69 year  
> old Aural tuner who sees absolutely no benefit in ever owning an  
> Tunlab or whatever. I am a concert tuner and to this day will put  
> my tuning up against any of you.

Unfortunately, Ron's opening paragraph sent the discussion flying off  
on a tangent, leaving a very good point behind. That is, the natural  
loss of hearing as we age, and how easily hearing aids can fit into  
the practice of tuning pianos. And his final paragraph gave it  
another kick.

> For God Sake---go get your ears checked people. Your ETDs don't  
> hear this stuff. Half of you can't hear and don't know it. Piano  
> tuners are probably among the absolutely worst hearing people in  
> the world.

What he is saying is that, ETD users or not, we'll all reach the  
point where the critical sounds in a piano simply don't register in  
our hearing. And I'm not just talking about What we need to tune a  
piano.

Come summer I love to swim, and better yet, dive off of high rock  
ledges into deep pools. At least three times in the last twenty  
years, I've surfaced after a 10-12' plunge and found my ears plugged  
with my own ear wax, pushed there by the sudden spike in water  
pressure. Each time, I got myself to the local RN for an irrigation  
of the ear canals. But in each case, not before having to do a  
weekend concert tuning.

I found quite quickly that all my favorite partials for tuning were  
still readily available through the muddiness of my hearing. What I  
could not do was voice. The nuances of attack, bloom and whine were  
bearing in the mud. As were any of the ticks, scrapes and whines  
which they hire us to clean up.

The moral? For all of us, the ability to hear what goes on during a  
tuning will be the last thing to go. Long before that will be the  
ability distinguish, say the subtle differences in brightness among  
three strings on a note, which allows us not to waste our voicing  
techniques where they are not needed.

Ron is spot on when he says our ETDs don't hear this stuff, namely  
loose pinning and loose backcheck heads. They weren't designed to.

Plenty more to discuss on this, but let's see if we can get the  
discussion back on track, say on something we all have in common, the  
sunset years of aural accuity.

BillBallard RPT
NH Chapter, P.T.G.
wbps at vermontel.net


"Can you check out this middle C?. It "whangs' - (or twangs?)
     Thanks so much, Ginger"
     ...........Service Request
+++++++++++++++++++++




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