I am intrigued with this thread, especially the way Ed hears partials. I just hear beats and use them to complete my goal. I have enjoyed the discussion on the tuning methods of Virgil Smith. I met Virgil in New Zealand in 1998 and attended a three hour lecture on his view of tuning. Over the last couple of days, I have re read his lecture notes and read his book. many times. As per usual with piano technicians, Virgil's lecture was viewed as both good and bad. I kept my opinions to myself, wanting to try them out for myself. The idea of not using a temperament strip was not new to me as a couple of tuners I knew believed that temperament strips were for amateurs. Other techs believed that you could achieve better accuracy with a temperament strip in the mid section. They also added that it was faster with a strip. We all have strong opinions. I came up with a solution that I would tune a F3-F4 temperament with a strip and then tune the unisons, and finish off the piano using "open strings". I found that I was using 98% of Virgil's instructions, and it is so close to the Yamaha method mentioned in the past weeks. I have to add that some technicians agree with the 10th being faster than the 3rd with the same bottom note, like Virgil (example) and some disagree. The saga continues. A technician I spent a lot of time with tuned using 3rds & 6ths temperament with one felt wedge, and he told me that there was only one good method in tuning. His.. His tuning is so similar to Virgil's except for using the F3 F4 temperament. He told me that if I wanted to become a better tuner, I should adopt his methods.. Boy if I had a dollar (USD) for every time I have heard this.. I did try his method but found the single strings a little difficult.. Mainly because I could tune faster with the 13 notes in the strip.. And believing that I could be more accurate with the strip. Thanks to this thread and the comments by Ed, Kent and David, I decided to give the single strings a go. I have tuned one of my concert instruments every day this week, and yesterday I decided to use the VS method. I still used the F3 F4 temperament with 3rds & 6ths, however I then worked down to D3 just to follow Virgil's method. I found that my tuning followed Virgil's rules, but the interesting thing is that although the tuning was almost the same as the previous strip method. the new sounded better. why??? Is it perception ?? Today I had to tune the piano twice.. one for concerto rehearsal and tonight for concert and with recording for radio. Today, I didn't listen to 4ths after F4, I just tuned the octaves and checked with progression of 10ths, 17ths etc etc. And the piano sounded great.. I am not really one to sing my own praises (Un Australian) however the piano did sound great. David Anderson, you are the most vocal on this list for this method, so WHY IS IT SO ?....... (BTW I hate to tell you that my 4ths still are increasing in speed.. but not much. SORRY) However it is something not to loose sleep over. or to spill my nice red wine I am currently enjoying.. It's Friday night! To finish, it is interesting to read how other technicians use different methods to achieve the same result. Either strip muting the whole piano then tuning unisons to finish or listening to specific partials. It proves how wonderful the human brain truly is. We all use our individual method, which is using the methods which were passed on to us..some good, some bad.. I just remembered something about the perfect 12th. I know that it has nothing to do with Bernard's software, however I attended a Yamaha lecture in November 1984 conducted by Yogi Suzuki from Yamaha. (I was 4 weeks into my apprenticeship) and he told us about using the 12 and 19th in tuning. The idea really rocked the tuners who attended. Most tuners disagreed with his idea as they thought the octaves were tuned too sharp. Three years later I asked Wayne Stuart at Preston College and he said that it was an ok plan however the interval was too broad and it was better to refine the tuning by using the 10th or 17th. What do others think.. David ???? As we say this side of the Pacific... Havagoodweekend.. Brian Wilson _____ From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Ed Sutton Sent: Friday, 13 March 2009 3:08 PM To: pianotech at ptg.org Subject: Re: [pianotech] Aurally pure octaves William- Since I can do both, I'll explain: When I listen "musically" to a Major third, say F3-A3, the beating sounds like its a vibrato happening at the pitch level of the thirds; imagine, say, a violin playing the third with vibrato. When I listen "analytically," I let my hearing scan up the overtones until I hear the co-incident partials where the beating is occurring. Now I can recognize that the beating that I first heard at the fundamental level is really happening at the 5/4 level and that there is no beat at the fundamental level. As long as I can remember I have been able to listen to a tone and consciously isolate many of the partials of the tone. I thought everyone could do this, but in teaching I've learned that not everyone can. I've also seen people who could not hear the partials of a tone suddenly become able to hear them. When I talk of different modes of perception, I am referring to these two different ways of hearing which I can usually effect at will by just imagining how I want to hear. Ed Sutton ----- Original Message ----- From: William Monroe <mailto:bill at a440piano.net> To: pianotech at ptg.org Sent: Thursday, March 12, 2009 10:13 PM Subject: Re: [pianotech] Aurally pure octaves SNIP I was drawn to the idea that tuners need not listen to beats at their specific pitch levels, since I am one the tuners who has never heard coincident partials at a their actual pitches. Whole sound tuning is where it's at. It is not secret knowledge. I'll be attempting to demonstrate next week at the Central-West Regional Seminar in Wichita. Kent Kent, Can you explain this more clearly? I know it's been (re)hashed many times and, recently, but, where DO you hear the coincident partials if not at their specific pitches? I'm more than open to learning/experiencing this technique, and I've no doubt standing behind you (Virgil, DA, etc.) would be far more instructive, and I intend to do that at GR if DA gets it going; but for now, are you just listening to "everything presented" at once? Or is it something different, specific to partials, but with a slightly different focus? William R. Monroe No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.0.237 / Virus Database: 270.11.10/1994 - Release Date: 03/13/09 05:59:00 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20090313/ae3d09a0/attachment-0001.html>
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