Nice post Dave. I agree completely. While I used to be strictly an aural tuner and a stubborn one at that, thinking aural was the "only way," I purchased Cyber Tuner only after it finally did what I thought it should do. I use it in conjunction with my ears always checking the tuning afterward to make sure things are where they should be. I too, have saved my best concert tunings onto it. When I need to tune for a 2 concert duet which I do often, it comes in very handy as I can put the exact same tunings onto both pianos which usually saves me about an hours worth of time. You are 100% correct when you say, we MUST be able to distinguish what is correct from what is not correct. We can only do this aurally. No machine is perfect. No ear is perfect either. While some are better than others, I can say from first hand experience in talking to Dean Reyburn that Dean tells people (he told me anyway) that the machine is not meant to be substitute as a replacement for our human ear. It is an aide to it. We must still be able to use our ears to tell us what, if anything in the tuning is not correct and we must be able to correct it and not be afraid to disagree with what the machine produces. A friend of mine uses Tunelab. He likes to say, when my ear doesn't agree with the outcome, guess who always wins? ME! I like to win! As he smiles. Jer -----Original Message----- From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of David Renaud Sent: Saturday, April 04, 2009 11:35 AM To: Pianotech Subject: [pianotech] aural vs edt I am an active CTE and perhaps can add some thoughts to muse over. Point form so you can pick what you want to respond to. 1) EDTs are fantastic tools. As an aural tuner for 20 years integrating EDT use has made me a better tuner. The ability to analyze my unisons and stability has tightened up my unisions and improved stability. The ability to analyze what I do aurally has given definition, clarity, and consistency to choices of stretch. The ability to save my best aural tunings on concert instruments has been an aid worth a fortune this last month with bronchitis, on 6am tunings, and on long long days. From an Aural tuning advocate let be first be very clear on this; the EDTs we have today are fantastic tools, I approve of their use, they are here to stay, aural tuners can learn much from EDT analysis. 2) EDT only tuners can also learn much from aural analysis. Any smooth tuning stretch curve generated from samples as taken by cybertuner, tunelab and such does not account for each and every string scaling change and accompanying inharmonicity jump. As small as these jumps may be they remain significant. When staring from a quality machine tuning and subjecting the tuning to careful aural tests for smooth progressions of intervals the machine tuning even on a nice piano like a Yamaha C7 will move away from the generated curve significantly and jump back with each string size change. Fine concert tuning requires smoothing out interval progressions this way. Verituner and perhaps others will listen to individual note inharmonisity and generate compensation for same. When asked if we can use Verituner to generate a master tuning I am told it still takes a few passes to gather enough information for this. The ear I think must remain the boss, as good as EDTs become careful aural listening will be the judge by the finest musicians and tuners. 3) If we will not preserve this aural tradition who will? 4) I need subs for my 4 regular concert venues from time to time.... I can not hire an EDT only tuner. What will they do if it crashes? What will they do if your battery dies? What will they do if they run over your kit with your car and kill the EDT(happened to one tech I know) Tell the artist sorry, no tuning on stage today for the show. I can not take this risk with my major clients when I send in a sub. Therefore, you want to grow a business to include concert tuning, the top musicians, and all the related references, Its less likely to happen in this city without aural skills. 5) To many times I hear EDT only tuners who brag about "perfect" tunings, "the same every time" that do not listen and trust the machine get followed up with complaints. I subcontracted to one for a time and had to quite because of complaints. No listening was taking place and the some of the follow ups were scary tunings. 6) My personnel conclusion is integration is way of the future and is best. Aural tuners can learn from EDTs, EDT tuners can learn from Aural testing skills. Lets learn the best of both worlds and raise standards all round. 2 cents worth for now Cheers Dave Renaud from the Great White North 5) this way. __________________________________________________________________ Be smarter than spam. See how smart SpamGuard is at giving junk email the boot with the All-new Yahoo! Mail. Click on Options in Mail and switch to New Mail today or register for free at http://mail.yahoo.ca _____ avast! Antivirus <http://www.avast.com> : Outbound message clean. Virus Database (VPS): 090403-0, 04/03/2009 Tested on: 4/4/2009 11:49:23 AM avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2009 ALWIL Software.
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC