Allan: Right on! Mihalyi's book has been on my shelf since it came out a decade ago or so. And the experience of "flow" happens in regard to all sorts of things piano, from tuning to regulation to center pinning to stringing to soundboard installation. They are all of them meditative conditions once one gets past the technical "uptake", the tool manipulation, and the overly analytic frame of mind. I still hear the beating of coincident partials as a primary tool for tuning, sometimes at pitch and sometimes not, since the "tool-ness" of the beating has become such a natural aural capability now. When I started, and as we teach students here to learn to tune, it strikes me with great force regularly, how arcane and lovely the spectrum of sound is as it is available to us for our use, either in the part or in the whole. There should indeed be no great divide between us at this level, nor "school of thought", nor philosophical disagreement for that matter (except for the shared distrust for secret knowledge even if it is a satisfaction as a rationale) since we all use all of these methodologies in one way or another as we tune in "flow" and as precisely as possible. As Ed Sutton once said, we tuners make more ethical decisions in an hour and a half than most ministers make in a month. His point was, I think, that we have the capability to make such fine distinctions toward the good and tuning is rife with the pitfalls of "good enough". Whatever one calls their style of tuning, let us not make our style designation a matter of exclusion nor disdain. Let us simply share "open" knowledge, not its opposite. Paul In a message dated 3/13/2009 6:35:08 P.M. Central Daylight Time, allan at sutton.net writes: Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, a psychologist, introduced the notion of "Flow" as "the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity" (This is taken from Wikipedia article.) That's what you are talking about, Ed. I look forward to seeing David or someone else work in this state of "Flow" this summer. This state I know from performing on stage afterwards, as the most exhilarating experience I have ever known. Having used Tunelab for 6 years, I tune in a more "ordinary" state, then enjoy the beauty and "perfection" I recognize in the result, almost on every piano. **************A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy steps! (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1220439616x1201372437/aol?redir=http:%2F%2Fwww.freecreditreport.com%2Fpm%2Fdefault.aspx%3Fsc%3D668072%26h mpgID%3D62%26bcd%3DfebemailfooterNO62) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20090313/1cef5dfa/attachment.html>
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC