Hi Gregor
I'm not surprised you didn't get taught to listen for specific partials
as such. And I'm not surprised that what you were taught to listen for
was explained in terms of coincident partials. I wasn't either. Nor do
many of the older texts really explain things this way. Just so... when
we listen to any given interval, there are coincident partials
responsible for the beats we here... as you obviously were taught more
or less as a side issue. The difference is that many now see how
valuable a tool the whole vocabulary is in teaching, communicating, and
better understanding the discipline of tuning.
Just telling someone to listen to any given interval and tell them to
listen for such and such a beat rate is not a particularly effective way
of conveying to a young student just what it is you want them to try and
focus on to begin with, nor is it particularly conducive to gaining a
deeper understanding of how to manipulate all the intervals and their
types purposefully and consciously to create any particular kind of
tuning we desire. One is left with one simple tuning recipe which one
does not really understand and is fairly incapable of doing anything
else. Perhaps even under the delusion that there is only one thing that
is a <<tuned piano>> and you've been taught it.
I was initially taught a F3-F4 5ths and 4ths temperament with no checks
other then the last 5th should end up with the the same basic beat rate
as its neighboring. Octaves I was taught were confirmed with 12ths and
just listening to the Octave in a holistic sense. I got good at
this...Tuned without a click for 17 years in a row for a major jazz
festival. Was the only tuner on a particular Keith Jarret tour in Europe
one year that didn't get the big thumb down by Keith. But when it came
to taking a test where other priorities were required of me... I was
incapable meeting these. Luckily for me at nearly the same time as my
first test I ran into this list and folks like Coleman (who was active
at that time) and many others who immediately started explaining my
experience in terms of coincidents, and enlightened me to the fact that
a thorough understanding of these, applied to tuning will allow you to
shape just about whatever tuning priorities/style/requirements is put in
front of you. A year later I had completely understood exactly what the
Norwegian specifications in reality were... and executed their idea of a
tuning without problem.
In your closing sentence below... you describe what we all do... at
least those of us who on some level or another know what we are doing.
But there is a weakness in here that you dont seem to see. You say
"Depending on how prominent one beating pair is, the results may
differ". Thats not all. Results vary also because to no small degree on
what your ears are most sensitive to vary from one day to the other...
even your daily mood can influence your consistency.... Fact is when
the only information you are working with is what amounts to some vague
concept of <<what sounds good>> you put your self in a position where
you will tune the same piano differently from day to day without being
aware of just how significant these daily differences can be... or even
why they are there to begin with. And you are leaving out quite a few
steps further down the road you can take that will get you more
consistent, efficient, and allow you to make much more purposeful tuning
decisions when needed. Not to mention putting you in position to tackle
that difficult customer who just points out a note and declares "this is
false" or relieve the confusion on that young student who gets lost in
not just the mesh of all the overtones mixing together creating multiple
beat rates... but equally lost in the vague attempts you will have at
explaining what exactly it is you want them to listen to.
Tuning has changed since the advent of ETD's and this whole vocabulary
of interval types. For those who delve into that base of knowledge and
utilize it for its worth its changed radically for the better. And they
do not simply slavishly align single partials pairs at the expense of
others either.
Cheers
RicB
I don´t think that´s a problem of terminology, at least in my case.
It´s right that I never heard about 4:2 octaves before I got into
the ETD´s, but I understood immediately what it´s all about because
I learned tuning theory. As you mentioned, the principle is just the
same.
I learned tuning from 1988 to 1991, so my memory may be striking
what really happened during my training. But I believe to remember
that nobody told me to focus on particular partials. Maybe my mentor
was not so good in teaching. But even in vocational school in
Ludwigsburg they did not tell us, at least I remember so. I should
ask my former collegues about their memory. May be I was actually
told to listen to particular partials but I just forgot it and
nowadays I do it unconsciously.
Anyway, the holistic approach can´t be so wrong. Every partial pair
produces beats and my goal is to reduce the overall beating to
minimum. My goal is not to set one pair to zero beating to the
disadvantage of the other pairs. Depending on how prominent one
beating pair is, the results may differ.
Gregor
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