[CAUT] electronic tuning device preference?

[Fred Sturm]

On Mar 15, 2008, at 1:44 AM, ricb at pianostemmer.no wrote:
>  An ETD tuning is not a creative endeavour in
>>
> any sense of the word.   If you are simply following the dials.. ie
> the ETD's <<programed tuning>> then at very best your imput is so
> minimal as so essentially constitute a negligible effect on the end
> tuning.

	I think that here you have hit on the nub of the controversy, the  
source of much of the emotion that fills discussion of this topic: it  
is the desire that what we do be creative, be meaningful, not merely  
"mechanical." It is the opposition of "art" and "science." As a  
musician I have the same attitude. I don't "merely" play the right  
notes, in correct time, at the right dynamic levels. I "bring the  
music to life." OTOH, the vast majority of the work I do in preparing  
(practicing) focuses precisely on learning to play the right notes,  
yadda, yadda, all those mechanical things. I often use that most  
horribly unmusical, mechanical device, the metronome, to hone my  
skills. All in hopes that, with that background of practice, when the  
time comes for performance, inspiration will be there and it will all  
come together to produce "magic."
	I look at piano preparation as a piano technican in the same way:  
lots and lots of mechanical details, all of which come together to  
make that conglomeration of metal, wood and felt into something  
magical, with the potential for being the conveyer of "living music,"  
at which point it almost takes on life itself. I guess I am as  
sentimental and emotionally attached to my work as any member of our  
obsessive profession. I just try to be dispassionate in looking at the  
individual details, like tuning (which is, after all, the very most  
temporary of all the things we do as piano techs, a fleeting pattern  
that disappears all too soon - sometimes instantly when the stage  
lights come on <G>).
	Letoff is measurable. Pitch is measurable. Virtually everything we do  
to a piano can, conceivably, be quantified (voicing is troublesome  
that way). Description of what we do can be expressed and analyzed in  
mathematical terms. I think that is a good thing, and can help us  
learn to do our work better, even if it _is_ annoying sometimes <G>.  
This analytic approach shouldn't be seen as threatening, though I  
suspect it always will be.

Regards,
Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico
fssturm at unm.edu