comments interspersed.... On Mar 10, 2009, at 11:23 AM, John Formsma wrote: > 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 If it didn't challenge you and make you feel uncomfortable and edgy, it wouldn't be worth a damn thing when you get it. Keep going. Trust your ears. Keep going. Come watch me tune in Grand Rapids. > > > > I would disagree with Virgil about where beats come from. Me too. I am, at root, a rational pantheist. Science is good; being awed and grateful for the mystery of life and our beautiful mind and bodies is good. > Of course, they come from coincident partials. Of course---a blend of coincident partials, heard as just such by the ear of the artist. > But it is true that one can tune extremely well without listening > for specific coincidental partials. Exactly. As I'll prove in Grand Rapids. Experience always replaces belief. > > However, one can still benefit from the concept of listening > musically. Just relax and let the "force" guide you. <G> OK, all > kidding aside, if you do relax and listen for the sweet spot, you > will hear it eventually. Thing is, it's not kidding. There is a sweet spot: that idealized blend of whole tones between two notes, in context with all the other notes, that sounds the best to the musical ear, and to the artist, that the tuner's body/ears/mind knows "instinctively," with repeated, focused practice. Pay full attention when you tune; enter the world of sound, and stay there. It's like a light trance, but completely functional. It's soothing and relaxing. > Assuming you have good lever technique. This is huge. You MUST have good lever technique to produce a stable tuning. Good lever technique means FEELING THE PIN THROUGH THE LEVER. This is why you need a good lever if you're serious about the work. > You also need to learn how to set the middle string slightly above > that sweet spot so that when the other strings are tuned to the > middle, the pitch is correct for all three strings sounding > together. (Pitch does change somewhat when unisons are tuned to the > middle string.) Yup. I've experienced it for a long time; I call it the VSP (Virgil Smith phenomenon)---IMO, a combination of inter-unison tension and coupling activity that we haven't been able to measure, plus the "disappearing beat" effect of the triple unison when tuned spot-on. > > David Andersen, I'd like to attend the tuning soirée in GR. I would love to have a Southern gentleman such as yourself, sir. > Would it be during a normal class time, or after hours? Don't know yet. I'd love it to be a class. Email Ward Guthrie (the GR Institute director) and demand/cajole/enroll....I will too. Whole-tone, open-string tuning is NOT some wacky or delusional or "god- based" thing; it's a real, practical, repeatable, teachable way to use your body as a feedback loop to get an idealized musical, stable tuning. I'll show you the natural beat, as Virgil calls it. I am a proud protegee of Virgil's work and methods----AND I have customized his protocols for myself, and I believe I have discovered a way to teach what I know in a really simple and graphic way. I believe tuning with full attention, with an artisan's standard of excellence, will bring anyone's piano practice to a whole new level of enjoyment and commercial success. Seriously. This passion I feel for this is not only ethereal; it's rooted in complete Darwinian reality: if your tunings sound clearly better to the artist than the next guys' tuning---you win. Forever. Or as long as you can produce those repeatedly musical, soaring, stable tunings. I believe it's a powerful and recession-busting skill to have. Plus, it makes you feel like an 800-pound stomping gorilla in your peer group and the artist community when serious players ooh and ahh about your tunings. Or maybe that's just me? <g> Rock on, kids..... David Andersen -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20090310/71a473fa/attachment-0001.html>
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