On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 8:10 PM, William Monroe <bill at a440piano.net> wrote: > > I think I get your intention, Ric, in suggesting that there exists a > "particular location" where the octave is just as clean sounding and round > and lovely as it can be. I simply object to referring to it as a "beatless > octave" unless you further define it by its coincident partials. If you > choose not to listen to any particular partial alignment, that's fine, but > it still exists. Well spoken, sir! :-) However, since I am very fond of the results one may obtain from following Virgil's technique, I will offer this. When we listen to music, we do not, upon hearing the beats in a wide double octave, say things like this: "My, that 4:1 coincidence is way off, don't you think?" Or, "That 5th was fine at the 3:2 level, but it was wanging at 6:4!" Rather, we say things like this: "I sure hear the beats in those octaves." Or, "That 5th sounded off to me." And, this is said without reference to where the beats occur. So, there can be a sense of "beatlessness" -- albeit a very limited sense from the perspective of the piano tuner who has to make the choices in tuning to achieve this sense of beatlessness. And if it is possible to achieve a perceived "beatlessness" from a musician's point of view, we should all want that. I have found the practice of listening musically to be extremely helpful in tuning. It sounds so much more pleasing and satisfying ... musically. This is not to say that I never use my skills of listening directly at various coincident partials. I frequently do, and I am thankful that I spent the time in training my ear to listen there. Focusing too much on what happens at the coincident partial level can be detrimental to developing an overall musicality, particularly if the tuner is not musically inclined to begin with. Very fine tuning is a blend of science and art. There must be some science in the method, yes; but as the science is mastered, the art must also be allowed to fully develop. And I don't believe that tuning by the direct focus on coincident partials alone will allow that full development. There must also be that listening for the octave that is "just as clean sounding and round and lovely as it can be." And for me, that happens when I forget about the partials, and listen to it as a musical tone. I may be as wrong as wrong can be. We've certainly been through this before on the list, and no doubt it will come up again ... and again ... and yet again. <G> And, for the record, beats come from coincident partials. <G> And now ... "We must get you to your ship." -- JF -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20090309/6ec621fc/attachment-0001.html>
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