The eciding thing to me is to be able to do a credible tuning, repeatable each ime I tune the same piano. To me that means using my SAT . It does not ean that the tuning could not be tweaked to be more exact, but, I am not in he business of performing concert level tunings on the clienteles home ianos that I service. With the SAT, as with other ETD's, there are no 'off ays" Nit picking on every tuning a person does creates burn out. I tuned 8 years aurally before beginning with Sanderson's wonders and I am in my 0th year of piano tuning this June. Life is too short to be that nit icky. ames Although it is almost impossible to attain a concert level tuning on a crappy piano, one can always make it a little better than what the ETD does. When we do that, it will actually save us time, and make our lives a little easier. A long time ago, Liz Baker gave a tuning class, and used a target to demonstrate tuning accuracy. (What they use at TARGET.) When you look at that target, there is a red dot in the middle, a white circle and a red outer circle. Put a dot in the middle of the red inner circle, and that represents a string at 100% accuracy. The inner edge of the white circle represents that string at 1 cent off. The inner edge of the outside red circle represents the string at 2 cents off. Some of us might be able to detect a string that is off by 1 cent, (after all, we allowed a 1 cent tolerance on our exams), but most of us should be able to tell a string that is off by 2 cents. Now, subdivide each one of the circles, starting with the inner red circle, by 10 rings, equal distance apart. Each one of the rings represents 1 tenth of a cent. So if you are on the outer edge of the inner circle, the string is off by .9 cents. If you're in the middle of the white circle, you're off by 1.5 cents. Etc. When tuning, we want to be as close to 100% dead on accurate as possible. Now, even though the new ETD claim they are .0005 accurate, because of flaws in the pianos, and tuning technique, most tunings will not be that close. That is why doing a follow up aural check of your tuning is recommended. So why is it important that we aurally check our work, and how can spending extra time on the tuning save you time and make you life easier? Simple. The closer we can get to 100% accuracy, the better the piano will stay in tune. When the final tuning of a string is at .9 cents, it won't take much change in humidity or temperature for it to slip into the next circle. But if that string is within .1 cent of 100% perfect, it will take longer for it to get out of tune. So if all of the string are as close to 100% accurate as possible, when you go back 6 months or a year later, the piano will be better in tune, and your second tuning will be that much easier, and you can get done faster. That is why you should spend a little extra time on tuning. You do that three or four years in a row, and the piano will almost not need tuning. (At least that's what I've experienced) Wim -----Original Message----- From: James Grebe <jamesgrebe at charter.net> To: pianotech <pianotech at ptg.org> Sent: Wed, Feb 2, 2011 3:36 pm Subject: Re: [pianotech] 4ths 5ths I have stayed out of this argument. BUT im, back in the days when you, I, Liz Baker , and Ron Berry spent 3+ hours n preparing the master tuning for the test piano at Principia it amazed me hat there is no end to how much can be done to tweak a tuning. There is lways something that can stand correction or something. It may be that one erson can get a extremely accurate tuning with the aural route, BUT we are ot in the business to do extreme, concert quality perfect tunings on most f the pianos we tune. Our job is to make the piano sound as good as it can ound in a reasonable amount of time at a reasonable price. Most of the unings most of us perform are on mediocre pianos that do not get tuned ften enough to be able to hold a concert type tuning that well. The eciding thing to me is to be able to do a credible tuning, repeatable each ime I tune the same piano. To me that means using my SAT . It does not ean that the tuning could not be tweaked to be more exact, but, I am not in he business of performing concert level tunings on the clienteles home ianos that I service. With the SAT, as with other ETD's, there are no 'off ays" Nit picking on every tuning a person does creates burn out. I tuned 8 years aurally before beginning with Sanderson's wonders and I am in my 0th year of piano tuning this June. Life is too short to be that nit icky. ames ames Grebe Est. 1962 iano Tuner-Technician reator of Custom Caster Cups reator of Fine Writing Instruments iano benches heatre and Theatre Organ Historian ww.grebepiano.com 526 Raspberry Lane rnold, MO 63010 314) 608-4137 ----- Original Message ----- rom: <tnrwim at aol.com> o: <pianotech at ptg.org> ent: Wednesday, February 02, 2011 5:49 PM ubject: Re: [pianotech] 4ths 5ths Allow me to make one final comment on this thread. There are three different levels of tuners. There are those who tune urally, but are not able to pass the tuning exam, which requires very aural asic tuning skills. These tuners are convinced that the tuning test is lawed, but are happy to tune at their level. They make enough money from heir customers, and do not see need to try to improve their tuning skills. Then there are those tuners who use an ETD, and are satisfied with the esults they get. They do not see a need to try to improve on it. They think he tuning exam is not necessary because they know, in their heart, that the TD gives them the best tuning that can possibly be gotten out of the piano. ost of their customers are happy with their results, and they do not see he need to try to improve on their tuning skills. And then there are those tuners who are able to listen to the results of an TD, and not only can hear the minor flaws it produces, but can do something bout it. These are the tuners who are willing to spend the extra time and ffort to correct the minor flaws, and do the best tuning that instrument an produce, not necessarily because their customer demands it, but for heir own satisfaction, which is why they became an RPT in the first place. Wim. ----Original Message----- rom: Paul T Williams <pwilliams4 at unlnotes.unl.edu> o: pianotech <pianotech at ptg.org> ent: Wed, Feb 2, 2011 11:52 am ubject: Re: [pianotech] 4ths 5ths usan, unfortunately, you're preaching to a wall. Quit feeding the cat. If ou feed a stray cat, he'll come back again and again. Please just call it uits with this guy. You and he are never to agree, and that's that. Let's ll just let this go and go back to our lives and tuning the way we see fit. he eternal argument isn't just between you two (and a some on Wim), and eeps creeping up every 6 months or so and then we're all back to the circle the wagons", here comes the enemy thing. The strange, but funny thing is, 99% of the home-owned piano people would ver know what method is better, can't hear the difference, or care: Only he most professional pianists and other master musicians will be able to ell; AND, the beauty of the tuning is in the master of the hammer skills nd ears to hear; not the devices he/she uses to get it there. Some aural uners are awesome, some ETD tuners are awesome. I will give you this, owever, Susan; You have to use your ears and intuition, period! Merely ooking at a machine will never make a great tuner. JMHO. There again, nother can of worms that must be used for fishing, not arguing. Nothing you, I, or anybody on this list is going to change the way Duiane or ny other is going to do "their" thing. It's too bad to not be open minded, ut those with a barred door can not open it. Let's please drop this thing! Thank you. Still aural, with an occasional ETD helper... JUST TO HELP! Paul From: usan Kline <skline at peak.org> To: ianotech at ptg.org Date: 2/02/2011 11:54 AM Subject: e: [pianotech] 4ths 5ths On 2/1/2011 11:30 PM, Duaine Hechler wrote: ou are being the most boisterous against ETD usage. 'm being the most boisterous in favor of aural tuning. What you take as dissing ETDs in general are my attempts o explain why I (not anyone else, _I_) don't want to use ne. My problem with you isn't that you use an ETD. It's that ou seem to hate anyone who uses aural tuning instead of ne. Also, I believe the many experts here, most of whom use TDs every day, when they say it can't stand alone. Now, these ears of yours ... It's not a physical problem, bviously. It's a strain on your patience and concentration, ecause the beats are hard for you to hear. This happens to ome people, especially when they are beginning. The trick s to find out WHERE (at what pitch) you should be istening for the beats. They are higher partials, not the fundamental. You obviously an hear them somewhat, or you couldn't tune unisons and ctaves. If you set up an interval, and want to hear the beats, start ith thirds in the middle register, which are going not too low, not too fast. Mute off the two notes so each is a single tring. Start tuning one of the notes, till you get a good, rominent beat. Some of the beats for major thirds are so rominent they practically knock your socks off! That should ive you an idea of the pitch at which the beat is occurring. ou can hum it. If I were there I could hum it at you. ow - wow - wow - wow etc. Once you figure out which pitch to listen at, the whole thing hould ease up and not be such a big problem. You can gradually isten to faster beats and to slower ones. You have noticed that when you hear a fifth or a fourth, it as a curl to it? It's like a vowel sound. You can vocalize he vowel sound and then get it to go the speed you want as ou tune the note. This kind of slow-beating interval is ighly useful to evaluate how even your temperament is. It an be a vocal thing, like oooaaaawwwwuuuu. For unisons, also, ocalizing helps. You want to get long open vowels, like ah r oh, instead of eeeee or diphthongs, like eeeeyyaaaa. Don't worry about beats per second. Theoretically it's good nformation, but most of the determinations you need are relative nstead of numerical. It's good to have a rhythmic memory of ow fast the F-A at the start of the temperament sequence goes. hen one tunes the octave F, and fiddles the C# in between so hat the three thirds progress. None of that takes counting gainst a stopwatch, or anything. And there are four notes of he scale in pretty good places. Heck, it's a start. Just master that and you should feel an wful lot more confidence and comfort. Listening for fourths hould stop being an ordeal by the Inquisition. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20110202/e6a211be/attachment.htm>
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