JF wrote: SNIP > 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. > No problem with any of this. I agree wholeheartedly. And, as long as you continue to phrase things such: "sense of beatlessness", or, "perceived beatlessness," I could accept it. But I think it would be better phrased with regards to cleanliness than beat speeds, e.g. trying to tune an octave or dbl octave so that the combination of coincident partials sound "as clean as possible." > 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. > This phrasing I have difficulty with. I don't know any technicians of value who do not listen to their tunings musically. The end-game of all tuning is ultimately, "but, does it sound good?" Too frequently I hear some technicians use this "listening musically" phrasing as an excuse for poor tunings. I've had a couple in particular suggest for example that having parallel thirds jumping all over in an intended ET tuning is just fine, and that "I'm listening as a technician, not a musician." Well, yeah, and musically there are problems with this tuning. And to be clear, I do not claim to be anything other than adequate at my tuning skills. These are really basic errors I'm speaking of. To be clear, I KNOW that this is not what you are saying, but I think the phrasing gets hijacked for lesser purposes. > SNIPAnd now ... "We must get you to your ship." > > -- > JF > John, "We are men of action, lies do not become us." <G> William R. Monroe -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20090309/41e335b1/attachment-0001.html>
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