[pianotech] Aurally pure octaves

[Jim Moy]

I happen to have read recently, and have in front of me, a copy of
Virgil Smith's "New Techniques For Superior Aural Tuning," 2nd Ed.
(Available at the PTG store, BTW)  Thought it might be useful to have
a few excerpts:

Ch.1

"...it is not necessary to hear the pitch of single matching partials
to hear beats for aural tuning, because of the ability of the ear to
combine all the partials of a note into one pitch.
...
"When an interval is expanded or contracted to produce beats, the ear
(when listening to the two notes normally) combines all the partials
of both notes into two single pitches, just like it does with one note
alone.  In addition, it combines all the beats between the partials
into one beat.  The beat then comes from all the partials instead of
one set of partials.
...
"This beat can be tuned to the desired speed or eliminated completely.
 This means that beats can be heard two different ways: between single
matching partials, and between notes as the ear hears them naturally
with all the partials of each note sounding.
...
"For clarity, one will be referred to as 'partial beats,' and the
other as 'natural beats.'  It is important that every tuner clearly
understand this, for failure to understand this has lead to much
confusion in the past. ... The finest quality aural tuning can be
accomplished by dealing only with natural beats.
...
"In some cases, the beat at the single matching partial level is
different when all the partials are contributing to the one beat."

I hope I have not mis-represented Virgil's intent, by not quoting in
its entirety.  I am still striving to grok in fullness what I have
read in his book.  I experience what he is describing when I play and
listen.  But when I go to put it in practice tuning, I still feel as
if I am encountering a Zen puzzle of sorts.

Jim Moy

On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 12:28 AM, Richard Brekne <ricb at pianostemmer.no> wrote:
> Hi William and others.
>
> Nice stuff... sorry bout the rest.... seems to never go away.. but let go.
>  I have to agree with the below... I like to think in terms of coincident
> partials when trying to describe things tuning wise... phrases like beatless
> octave and aurally perfect octaves require me to think out of my own
> box...which I can do... but its clear that a lot of confusion gets stirred
> up as too many start mixing vocabularies.
>
> So what do we call what Virgil refers to as the beatless octave and now
> surfaces anew in the term aurally pure ? Can we put a name on it... or do we
> have to use phrases like you touch on below ?
>
> Cheers
> RicB
>
>
>   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."
>
>
>
>