I tune aurally and wouldn't know how to turn on an EDT. It's my choice...and I find a great deal of satisfaction in using my aural skills to tune a piano starting from A-440. When I find a piano that is around 15 to 20 cents flat or more I rough tune the piano, then fine tune it. For our concert instruments I often make a third pass just to settle the piano in for a concert workout. Nearly all of my outside customer's pianos I can pull it up to pitch and fine tune in two passes. I strip mute the whole piano and don't pull the strips when I rough tune and found very good results by using this method. On my rough tuning pass I generally over pull my A by anywhere from 2 cents to 25 cents depending on how low I find the piano. I have pulled up a piano nearly 200 cents flat and have gotten it close (after all if the customer has lived with it that flat, getting it close, if not right on, is quite pleasant for their ears). I could possibly do the tuning faster with an EDT, with some practice, but for me, that would take all the fun and satisfaction out of it and it would become work. I opt for "fun" and "satisfaction!" I know there a host of technicians who disagree with me, but who cares...this method floats my boat! Joy! Elwood Elwood Doss, Jr., M.M.E., RPT Piano Technician/Technical Director Department of Music 145 Fine Arts Building The University of Tennessee at Martin Martin, TN 38238 731/881-1852 FAX: 731/881-7415 HOME: 731/587-5700 ________________________________ From: Duaine & Laura Hechler [mailto:dahechler at charter.net] Sent: Thursday, January 01, 2009 8:41 PM To: pianotech at ptg.org Subject: Re: [pianotech] Aural Tuning, a third flat That's another problem with aural tuning - what is it exactly of 30% overpull - meaning how do you do that ? I know, at least, Cybertuner automatically calculates and adds overpull. Since 99% of my customers' tuning are pitch raises in the first place - that's why an ETD is, in my eyes, absolutely necessary. Duaine David Love wrote: The beat rates would be slower. But why not just pull it beyond pitch by a factor of 25% (30% in the treble) so it falls back about where it should be by the time you're done? Afraid of strings breaking? If they're going to break, they'll break anyway. First pass to get it close, second pass if you missed your mark doing it aurally, third pass to fine tune (charge accordingly) and then come back in 3-4 months to tune it again (though it will likely be 3 years if they let it go this long the last time). I don't believe in creeping up on the pitch. Just get it there, do your best to fine tune it on the second pass and schedule the next appointment sooner than the last one. This is where an ETD comes in handy for accurate and fast pitch raises so the fine tuning has less distance to travel. David Love www.davidlovepianos.com From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Greg Livingston Sent: Thursday, January 01, 2009 5:47 PM To: Pianotech list Subject: [pianotech] Aural Tuning, a third flat Dear Friends, We have been told that the beat rate for A3-C#4 is about 9 bps; F3-A3 is about 7 bps; do these beat rates only apply when A4 is close to 440? If A3 on a neglected piano is closer to F#, are those beat rates the same? I recently tuned the most out-of-tune Acrosonic I've ever seen in 22 years of tuning. I did my best and the piano sounds better than I'm sure it's sounded in years, but I didn't dare get the A anywhere near my 435 fork. I decided just to raise A4 a bit and tune it from that point. Of course, if it slipped, it would throw everything off, but I had no other reference point. I will tune it again in a few months. Can I use those traditional beat rates when the A is somewhere around 420? Just wondering... ___________________________________________________ Gregory P. Livingston, Piano Tuning and Service 781-237-9178 Piano Technicians Guild, associate member (Boston chapter) * * * Always remember September 11, 2001 * * * ________________________________ Life on your PC is safer, easier, and more enjoyable with Windows Vista(r). See how <http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/127032870/direct/01/> -- Duaine Hechler Piano, Player Piano, Pump Organ Tuning, Servicing & Rebuilding Reed Organ Society Member Florissant, MO 63034 (314) 838-5587 dahechler at charter.net www.hechlerpianoandorgan.com -- Home & Business user of Linux - 10 years -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20090101/2e60a93b/attachment-0001.html>
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