I have just passed my tuning exam with the wonderful help of David Renaud as coach. Working towards that made me learn so much about tuning, tuning with a EDT, tuning by ear, listening to a specific harmonic or to the sound as a whole..... Makes me better with a EDT: I actually can judge with my ear what the machine tells me! I gained much confidence about what I hear. Makes me better tuning by ear: I now know that the world of piano sounds if more complex than I thought. All the information, knowledge and experience feed one another to my greatest pleasure. Now, so much left to learn... I am thankful for the opportunity! Allan Sutton www.pianotechniquemontreal.com 2009/11/14 Richard Brekne <ricb at pianostemmer.no> > Hi Gregor > > It was precisely the same approach below that led to my own failure to pass > my first tuning tests. You seem to imply that it is a negative thing to deal > with the academic side of our discipline. I would take the greatest > exception to that if so. The benefit of being aware and using consciously > coincident partials is to be able to converse intelligently with others and > with your self about what exactly you are attempting to accomplish. It does > no real good to use vague expressions like <<make it sound good>> > > I have no doubt that you learned to listen for certain beat rates in > testing intervals as a very central part of your training. The vocabulary > and academics behind interval types, ie 4:2, 6:3 octaves, 3:1, 6:3 > twelfths, 4:1, 8:2 double octaves etc etc are very central to what you were > listening too. Finishing off a fine tuning by listening holistically is good > practice in anycase... but certainly no reason for attempting to simply tune > that way from the get go and most certainly no reason for advising others to > set aside the intellectual side of what we do. > > No good tuner I know of simply slavishly aligns any particular pair of > coincidents to begin with. That piece of knowledge is also one of those bits > you pick up from the academic side. Coincident partials are tools we use, > and the more conscious we are about what they are and how to use them the > better a tuner you will be... no matter which way you go about things. > > Cheers > RicB > > > > Great idea. The whole discussions seems a little bit theoretical and > abstract. > > When I joined this list a few years ago I read the first time about > ETD愀. In this context I heard the first time about 4:2, 6:3 or > > whatsoever octaves. Of course I knew what was meant but I never > thought about it before. I learned all the tuning theory during my > training, but I never strived for a particular octave such as 4:2 or > any other. I just wanted to let it sound good. I remember that I > first had a hard time to decide on which beats of an octave I should > listen. I heard so much ringing, beating and overtones that I was > completely confused. My goal was to cut the knot and bring some calm > in the restlessness, but I did it with my ears and not with the > intellectual capacity of my academic brain. In hindsight I can say > that was a good because holistic approach. > > When you focus on a particular partial matching you risk that you > neglect other partial pairs. Once you started to focus on a pair > your brain will quickly adapt and filters out the rest. I became > aware of it since I have an apprentice now. She is new to tuning and > has the same hassle that I had with hearing overtones. She showed me > what she was hearing and I was stunned because I did not hear it > first. But after hearing it once I could not stop for a while, > because I was so focused on her perception. My brain had completely > filtered out what she was hearing before she told me. > > Sometimes some partials are louder than others and this > constellation is not consistent over the whole piano, sometimes even > not within an unison. What works for e.g. A3-A4 may be wrong for > G3-G4. So, a holistic approach might be better than single partial > matching. Tuning an interval always means finding the best possible > compromise. Therefore, just let it sound good and don愒 care too > > much about the math. > > Gregor > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20091114/7c13c6a7/attachment-0001.htm>
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