[pianotech] What is bloom,

[David Andersen]

Great post. Agree 100%. You are cranky and wise at the same time, my respected brother. A true paradox that I deeply enjoy; I understand your disparaging-sounding "you lot" is actually borne of affection and a grudging respect. Yes? No?
DA


On Mar 19, 2011, at 11:56 AM, John Delacour wrote:

> At 15:23 -0500 18/03/2011, David M. Porritt wrote:
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>> I am very aware of how our expectations affect what we see, hear, believe etc.  Could "bloom" be a result of different expectations?  If we are expecting decay like this:
>> <image002 10.png>
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>> since that is what we get on most pianos, but if we get decay like this:
>>  
>> <image006 2.png>
>>  
>> Our brain could interpret it as bloom since it is more than we expected.
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> Hey, David, I think those of us following this discussion should give ourselves a bit more credit than the average psycho-acoustician or social worker would allow us.  As tuners and technicians with long experience of listening to, dissecting and analysing complex sounds that unskilled people cannot even hear, we are not likely to be taken in by facile aural illusions.  When I approach a piano at the beginning of a toning job my hearing is average.  By the end of the job its acuity and focus is such that I feel myself possessed of a rare and exhilarating power, the ability to point my hearing at particular harmonics of a note, to listen in different dimensions -- an extraordinary ability that lasts as long as it is needed and then recedes, unused, until the next time.  This is not peculiar to me.  Any skilled tuner-technician is going to acquire these powers in the course of a long career tuning and toning, choosing hammers, locating buzzes etc.  Another part of the job is dealing with the musician, who generally has no such skill and expresses his impressions in baby-talk that we have to interpret.
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> Del is quite right to say that these things should be measured, but to say that because he, and nobody he knows, has measured them and that therefore they are likely to be a trick of the ear is perfect nonsense.  Measurement of even the simplest visible and tangible things is often difficult enough, as we all know.  How much more difficult acoustical measurements.  Of all the sciences I have skimmed the surface of, acoustics is the most difficult.
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> JD
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