Les Noces

[Fred Sturm]

I definitely agree with those who say tune each piano to itself.
Remember you are tuning a particular set of partials - mostly 4th and
6th partials. If one piano has an A number (FAC) of 13, and another has
6, those two A4's won't make a good unison regardless. But the first
partials will line up at least, if you tune each to its own numbers. (If
you tuned both pianos to the same calculated tuning, regardless if it
was an average, the first partials of the respective pianos would be
nearly 2 hertz apart - 440 vs 442, 439 vs 441, or 440 vs 438. That's
because you are tuning the 4th partial. The 1st partials will still be
the same distance from the 4th partials no matter where you tune them).
	In general, for divergent pianos, "tuning to their own numbers" will
give you closest to matching first partials for the middle 4 octaves.
And you want the individual pianos to have reasonable octaves and double
octaves, so its best to leave well enough alone in the outer ranges,
IMO.
	Concert grands tend to be so close to one another, I doubt you'd notice
a difference. But for concert grands, you might want to be careful in
the high treble, so you don't get too divergent - if one is giving a C8
of 30, another 50, that might be cause for concern. I doubt there would
be much divergence here, but you might want to check. If that was a
problem, I might tend to tune all four pianos in this instance to the
same file. Of course, it's pretty unlikely that there is anywhere in the
piece that high unisons between instruments would be overly exposed.
	I like to hit clean triple octaves in concert instruments (I aim for it
in all pianos, but often find I need to compromise between doubles and
triples). Don't know how that would compare to stretches on an RCT. I
take FAC and alter 8ves 5 and above, adding .5 to 20 cents or so to what
FAC gives me (.5 starting at C5, expanding to something like 20 or more
at C8). (In 8ves 6 through the top, I play notes 2 8ves, three 8ves, and
two 8ves/5th below the note, and decide how close I can get to matching
the 8th partial of the 3 8ve note without undue harm to 2 8ve). I like
the way the whole piano sounds MUCH better this way, even if I would
quarrel with the sound of individual 8ves and double 8ves. Haven't had
any complaints that I stretch too much. In fact, our new piano prof
specifically asked me to stretch more on his piano (a Steinway B. C8 was
45 cents. I now tune it to 55. He's happy). (Most of my stored C8
numbers are above 40 cents, some above 50. A few in the 30's. I do have
one piano with particularly low inharmonicity that has a C8 at 20
cents).
Regards,
Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico

Wolfley, Eric (WOLFLEEL) wrote:
> 
> I think the pianos are all going to sound different even if they are tuned
> perfectly together. Nothing wrong with being in tune... I'm going to throw
> some fertilizer on the fire here and ask everybody how much stretch they put
> in their concert tunings...All four of these pianos are pretty well scaled -
> no big surprises. I think they would all sound pretty good with an averaged
> tuning file and sound good together as long as the stretching was done
> equally. I've been using OTS 8 on my cybertuner with excellent results and
> feedback here. People don't seem to mind 2 BPS in the double octaves.
> Wouldn't good unisons amongst all 4 pianos be preferable? The slight
> differences in stretched double-octave beat rates would not be as noticeable
> in my opinion.
> 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Eric Wolfley, RPT
> Head Piano Technician
> Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music
> University of Cincinnati
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~