[CAUT] electronic tuning device preference?

[Fred Sturm]

On Mar 15, 2008, at 1:51 AM, ricb at pianostemmer.no wrote:

>
> I have to disagree about the tune-offs.  They were useless as
> experiements designed to ascertain anything at all except that a
> bunch of folks sitting in an audience could not really hear much of a
> difference... which say more about the degree those in the audience
> could hear either due to the degree of refinnement their ears had
> attained or because of limitations due to the acoustics in the
> listening area.

	Well, for my part I would say that something was "proved": there is  
no _obvious_ fundamental difference between a mathematically  
calculated and executed tuning and one that was created entirely by  
aural means. Lots of people had been claiming (and unfortunately many  
continue to claim) that there _is_ an obvious difference, that an  
"electronic tuning" is obviously inferior.  I'm not sure that  
arguments about how poor the acoustics were or might have been, and  
how poor the "refinement of their ears" was or might have been hold a  
lot of water. We're talking about professional piano technicians. If  
they can't hear through less than ideal acoustics, and if their ears  
aren't considered to be refined (in spite of spending their lives at  
the trade), well, what would it take to convince you? If it requires  
ideal acoustical conditions, and the ideal listener to discern the  
difference, I would say that for the vast majority of the public there  
isn't any difference, which is proof enough for me. As I understand  
it, the overwhelming consensus was that both tunings were far more  
than "acceptable," that both were excellent. Of course, if one wasn't  
there, one can always have the luxury of believing that "If I was  
there, I would have been able to tell" <G>. (I wasn't there).
	But in some ways the tune offs really raised more questions than they  
answered. For instance, there is the question of the particular aural  
style and the particular mathematical choice. For the original Chicago  
Tune Off, Jim Coleman chose to use the RCT style 9 (widest pre-set  
stretch). For the Orlando Tune Off, he used his electronic emulation  
of the "perfect fifths" temperament and tuning he had been working on  
(and wrote about in the Journal): an even wider stretch, especially in  
the center sections. There are many flavors of aural style (not to  
mention levels of ability, and how "sharp" anyone is on the given  
day), and there are many ETD approaches. Much of the fruitless  
argument about ETD versus aural makes all sorts of unspoken  
assumptions about one or the other. One of the assumptions is that the  
ETD assisted tuner simply turns on the machine and follows the  
instructions that came with it. I suppose that probably most do just  
that. But then the argument is about those generic manufactured  
tunings, not about use of an ETD: it's use can be as varied as the use  
of the ear. And if one is arguing about quality of aural tuning, well,  
in my neck of the woods, abilities and results vary pretty widely.  
Whose aural tuning is better than whose ETD tuning? I'll just leave it  
at that. <G>
	
>
> It is worth noting that another tuneoff was held some years later in
> which Bill Bremmer put his non-equal temperament on the stage along
> side of a Virgil tuning and an ETD tuning...  and by all accounts
> I've heard the Bremmer tuning was indeed differentiated from the
> other two and by no means in a negative sence.

	Yes, that is very interesting. Others have done similar side by side  
comparisons of ET and non-ET (notably Jim Coleman), and the tendency  
seems to be that pluralities prefer non-ET. BTW, Bremmer has recently  
been arguing that the PTG tuning test is flawed because of the lack of  
precision of its master tunings, that if we want to be serious about  
testing, we need to tighten the standards under which master tunings  
are created: as the standard against which 100% is measured, it really  
needs to be 100%. He doesn't tune ET as a rule, but accepts that a  
test measuring the ability of an examinee to create ET is a good  
measure of skill. And he suggests using an ETD as an assistant in the  
process of producing master tunings (not accepting a calculated tuning  
as the master, but using measurement and mathematical comparison to  
hone in on "perfection"). I sympathize with his arguments.

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