Ron N, Maybe a non-piano example might be helpful. There is everyday coffee. Then there is the better stuff. One could well say Folger's coffee is coffee. Coffee is coffee, after all. But once you've tasted and enjoyed better, you know there are different qualities available. What I hear from Virgil's method is a greater intensity, a deeper and richer flavor, if you will. Like excellent coffee, describing it in words is sometimes difficult. <g> On Dec 1, 2007 9:43 PM, Bob Hull <hullfam5 at yahoo.com> wrote: > >The different way of listening is that you > > don't consciously focus on individual partials. You listen to all the > > partials blending together, and try to focus on the natural beat. > > To say "focus on the natural beat" does not provide us with any criteria > for decisions and actions in tuning. This is a good point, Bob. Let me say at the outset, we are hearing the same partials that anyone else is hearing. Virgil doesn't hear different partials from what anyone else hears. I think the difference is in how those partials are processed and assimilated (in the brain) to form the ideal sound. And I'll try my best to talk about it in better terms. I tuned two pianos yesterday using Virgil's method (especially for you, Bob <g>), taking note of things to mention it here on the list. > > There are so many sounds occurring when we play each note that discernment > is required. We are not tyring to make each note sound "the best we can". > We are executing a series of delicate compromises. True enough. Tuning Virgil's way makes it easier (for me at least) to hear the best placement without having to listen at the 4:2, or the 6:3 partial levels. The compromises become more automatic. > > When someone talks about listening to the "whole sound like the pianist > hears", I think this can be misleading information. This may lead someone > to always seek to tune by adjusting the interval to compensate for the > loudest sounding partial because it it the one that makes the biggest > impression on your ears. However, adjusting the interval width according > to the wrong partial will result in the interval being too wide or too > narrow. I'm sure more detail is provided by David Anderson, Virgil Smith et > al when they give their classes. > > When your ears become trained and experienced for what you need to listen > for, it can become a rather "natural" or "habitual" thing to hear a certain > partial as the "loudest sounding" one and then make decisions about how you > are going to adjust a note based upon that aural information. In that case > the term "natural beat" makes sense, but to a new tuner, this language fails > to communicate the necessary information. While tuning yesterday, I took special note to exactly what I'm listening for when tuning an octave. I'll share that, then compare it to what I was taught to listen for when tuning by partials. Tuning a treble octave Virgil's way is like this: I'm listening directly at the upper note of the octave. I'm listening for the slightest beat on the wide side (when tuning the middle string). I don't have an ETD, so I can't measure in cents. But it's probably in the neighborhood of 0.5 - 0.75cents, depending on where you are in the piano. Enough you could easily hear it in a unison. It's an amount you have to get used to. It's the amount that when you tune the left string to the middle, the beat that was there goes away. Once you get used to listening for that, it's duplicated throughout the treble. Pretty much the same amount. And easily remedied by "cracking the unison." Tuning the bass is easier because you don't have to compensate for pitch difference as unisons are tuned. I'm listening directly at the lower noteof the octave. There is a place where that lower note forms a very solid kind of octave. You have to get accustomed to listening for it. Then I'll test it with other intervals to make sure I'm hearing it in the best place. Some times I'll adjust it, but most of the times, it's in the right place just by tuning the best octave. Yes, I know that's somewhat ambiguous, but it's the best I can do. <g> Tuning by partials, you are focusing the ear to listen to certain partials as they become beatless, or the exact same pitch. For instance, if you're tuning a 6:3 partial in the bass, just listen an octave and fifth above the upper note. Tune that beatless, and you have a 6:3 octave. Similarly, in the treble...say from F4-G5, you would normally tune 4:2 octaves. You do this by listening an octave above the upper note. When that is beatless, you have a 4:2 octave. Each octave type has tests to prove it. Yesterday, I did some extra tests to give you a better idea of octave widths, etc., when I tune Virgil's way. The first piano was a Yamaha U1. In the upper midrange, when tuning the middle string first, the octave is wider than a 4:2, and maybe even a 6:3 octave. (It's hard to tell for sure because the beats are quite fast in that area.) There was a noticeable beat with just the middle string, but that disappears when the unison is tuned. After the unison is tuned, the octave is slightly wider than a 4:2, but has no real beat as you're listening as a musician would. (That means listening only to the two notes as one octave -- I'm sure anyone could learn to focus on the partials and maybe pick out stuff going on there. But that's not how a pianist listens.) Also in the upper midrange, the P4s beat about 2 bps when tuning the middle string. After the unison is tuned, it drops down to the normal 1 bps. In the treble, the treble octaves are 1.5 bps or so wider than a 4:1 double octave when the middle string sounds alone. Then a little less than 1 bps after the unison is tuned. In the bass on this U1, the octaves were a bit wider than a 6:3 in the upper bass. In the middle of the bichord section, the octaves became roughly 8:4 and continued that way down to the bottom. It might have gone to 10:5, but it was hard to hear those beats in that particular piano. I mainly use double and triple octaves, along with the octave-fifth to test in this area. The other piano was a Yamaha G1. Pretty much the same in the midrange. The bass octaves were just slightly wider than 6:3 in the upper bass, gradually going to 10:5 in the lowest octave. The end result is that you end up with a piano whose octaves sort of float on top of each other. Kind of a continuous wave of sound even though there are two or more notes that are sounding at the same time. There is no perceptible out of tuneness. No partials fighting against each other. Just great, pure, high, and powerful sound. I hope this helps clarify things a bit. -- JF www.formsma.blogspot.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20071204/31ebb6bf/attachment.html
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