I wonder if anyone on the exam committee and the Journal is taking notes on this topic. It will come up repeatedly because newbies will always wonder about the very issues that have been raised in this thread. An article that outlines the aural/etd tuning controversy would be a good one for the Journal and should be put Chapter Toolkit so that chapters have ready access to information about some of the issues. It would be good for Associates to have in their exam prep materials. Secondly several years ago I made the deliberate decision to be an aural tuner just so that I wouldn't lose the aural skill that I had worked so hard to master. For several years I went over to the "dark side" and tuned almost exclusively with the ETD. In one of those epiphany moments that I described in my last post, I realized that the quality of my tuning wasn't up to my old aural standards. It wasn't a judgement against the ETD; it was a realization I wasn't paying attention to my work. As I started to wean myself away from a heavy reliance on the ETD, I realized that my aural skills had atrophied. So I decided that if I wanted to keep my aural skills at the highest level, I would rely on my ears rather than my eyes. Philosophically I decided that because music is primarily an aural phenomenon, access to my brain should be via the ears when tuning. My eyes are an equally valid way of accessing my brain for tuning purposes, given the accuracy of ETD's, but music is not seen, but heard. Also maintaining a refined aural skill links me to all those folks who have tuned before me, and have explored all the various intellectual facets that make tuning an interesting mental as well as practical pursuit. So I wouldn't call myself a hybrid tuner any more. I use an ETD for setting my A and for pitch raises. Otherwise I gladly open myself to the satisfaction that aural tuning gives me as well as all the quirks and failures that exclusively aural tuning can engender. Richard West
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