Question About Setting Octaves in the High Treble

[Ric Brekne]

david at davidandersenpianos.com wrote:

>>--------------
>>Oh boy  do I disagree ! :)  Not that I doubt David gets a beautiful
>>sounding piano mind you.
>>    
>>
>thanks, Rick. Good players really like the way I tune.
>  
>
Well hey,  you're a pro !  You've been at it a long time and have your 
style down pat. Andre likes to talk about tuners not so much as tuning 
but as making tone. I think he's got a good perspective.  Different 
stretch styles can perhaps compare in some sense to different 
temperaments .. ??

>>Its just that I dont personally adhere to that
>>group of tuners who go for triple octaves.
>>    
>>
>I'm sure your tunings are awesone as well---you tune for a lot of artists
>and serious players;
>We're obviously talking, with good aural tuners, about the difference of
>fractions of cents.
>  
>
>>Tho I do understand why many
>>do.
>>    
>>
>Please talk about that.
>  
>
Let me put it this way... sort of in reverse.  One fellow who's had a 
good deal of influence on me was a tuner who had an awful lot of pipe 
organ background.. as a player. As a pianotuner his ear just demanded 
really tight octaves.. I mean this guy ended up with 2:1's from C6-C7 
upwards.  He'd run chromatic 17ths upwards as he went along and boy did 
he like them slow.  But when he was done the instruments were always 
just beautiful.... sonorous character to them... sleepy in a really 
positive sense.  Ok.. the triple octaves were quite active indeed... but 
they were so darned consistant and in their own way they fit the pattern 
he had... or his tone shall we say.  Other guys have a different sense 
of piano tone/stretch.  Mine is kind of in the middle... and I am not 
really sure how I've ended up with it... but its mine if you get my 
meaning.  Still others want to get more .... what... tenseness ?? into 
their tone.  I'm not really sure its all  about a tuners sense for 
octaves per se'... as it may be about how the instrument sounds overall 
when they are done.  What we do with octaves as we get good at 
controlling our tunings may be more a matter of refining that tone we 
are after.  Hard to explain my thoughts but perhaps you get my meaning.  
In any case I get the feeling there are at least 3 basic stretch styles 
that can result in a piano haveing that clean as a whistle character.... 
each with their own tone.

>>Curiously enough tho.... all complaints I've ever had from pianists
>>about top octaves have come when they are stretched.
>>    
>>
>That's because most guys stretch...flame suit on...like a gorilla gives a
>love bite: extreme.
>  
>
Grin.

>> I've to date never
>>run into a pianist what complains about the treble being too low.
>>    
>>
>I have, interestingly enough.  A lot, in fact, in the studio circuit.
>  
>
Interesting... any thoughts as to why  the <<studio>> ??.. Intimate 
setting... should go hand in hand with "sonorous" I should think.  Any 
particular type of music tie in here ?

>>snip...... (dont need to repeat my method)
>>
>>Playing the intervals in fairly quick order as given above, it is very
>>easy to hear the relative beat rates and place the note to be tuned (the
>>17th) inbetween. Followed up by close listening to double and singel
>>octaves and the 12th, you quickly get a very consistantly and crispy clean
>>treble all the way up.
>>
>>Thats how I do it.
>>    
>>
>
>Whew! Sounds like a lotta checks, lotta moving around.  Thank God it works
>for you. I'll stick to my comparatively streamlined protocol, because it works for me.
>  
>
Its really not nearly as complicated as throwing out a description in 
terms of partials and intervals makes it sound.  Goes real fast 
actually.  But of course you should stay with what works for you.  One 
changes style perhaps once or twice in a carreer, if at all.  You end up 
with what you settle on and you get real good at it as time goes by.

>>Cheers
>>RicB
>>
>>    
>>
>
>cheers right back at ya, ya happy expat ya....
>
>David A.
>  
>

Best
RicB