[CAUT] electronic tuning device preference?

[Richard Brekne]

Hi Fred

I think I am going to stand by what I said here.  The thing is, Jim 
Coleman was at the time, and perhaps still is probably the most routined 
and scholared  ETD tuner that exist having received his honorary 
Doctorship in no small part because of his work in the field. In 
addition he is an excellent aural tuner. In addition he did not execute 
these tunings in a strictly ETD mode... nor does he self advocate doing 
so. In effect, his tunings were ETD basis and aural refined.

On top of this, listening in an audience situation to a piano and trying 
to apply the piano tuners discerning ear to two instruments played by a 
pianist is not something piano tuners are by and large accustomed to 
doing. One should not expect but a handful to pick up on any 
differences.  This clearly demonstratable by simply playing Ed Footes 
recordings of Beethoven in different temperaments to any given group of 
pianists and pianotechs and ask them to identify the non ET renditions 
of the piece.  For most of both classes you have to get fairly far away 
from ET to find more then a minority that can with any significant 
degree of accuracy identify the temperaments accurately as ET or 
non-ET.  Given the fact that humans clearly have the ability to learn to 
appreciate such differences given a bit of relavant knowledge and 
practice, this speaks to me of a specific lack of refinement in our 
listening abilities.  This is far from meant as a criticism... but 
rather points to an area where we can improve if we find it desirable.

To rest on the argumentation that this rather speaks to a lack of 
obvious_fundamental  difference is in this perspective then a kind of 
allusion to a variation of the theme <<ignorance is bliss>>. Which as 
far as it goes is fair enough.  But it fails if applied to the objective 
view of the subject at hand. In other words.. the apparent fact that the 
majoritas "we" has not (with few exceptions) learned to easily discern 
the audible differences between a strictly ETD tuning and an aural one 
does not in any way bear on what real and clearly audible differences in 
fact exist. It only points to our lack of ability to discern them. When 
this lack of ability is demonstratively a result of inadequate training 
for this specific listening task, then one is left ruling out the 
<<tuneoffs>> as valid as proofs of anything else. 

To turn this around a bit...  if you could find a small percentage of 
people... pianists, tuners or others who can readily discern between a 
strictly ETD tuning and an Aural tuning... then you will have shown 
something.  Likewise if you can conclusively show that no such skill can 
exist under any circumstances you will have shown something.  But the 
tuneoffs showed neither of these nor were they in anyway conducive to 
revealing either.  As such, I view their usefullness as less then 
marginal. More then anything else, they identified an area of weakness 
in our scope of skills.

Underlined in all this is that we are still on a tuning level that 
satisfies 98.8 % of all needs and conditions.

Cheers
RicB


        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>