[CAUT] Electronic Tuning Preferences

[Jim Busby]

Alan,

Excellent description/analogy! I like it. I'm going to steal that!

Regards,
Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Alan McCoy
Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2008 6:12 PM
To: College and University Technicians <caut at ptg.org>
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Electronic Tuning Preferences

Regarding ETDs. I tuned aurally for about 15 years and now about the same
length of time with SAT and RCT. For a variety of reasons I would not want
to go back to tuning using just my aural skills (think "cold, dead
fingers"). What first occurred to me just after making the switch to using a
machine along with my ears is that my role changed from "writer" to "editor"
of the tuning. To me creating the tuning is drudgery, but editing is pure
pleasure (assuming the piano is really a musical instrument and not a
facsimile). I listen and tweak the tuning as I listen to the voice of the
instrument. That is when I get interested. Color, depth, projection,
movement, emotion, inspiration.

'Course even when I tuned only by ear, I never counted beats. I tempered by
listening to the flavor of the intervals so that the thirds were similarly
spicy, while fourths, fifths and octaves had some motion. Still  do this,
as editor.

My 2c.

Alan

-- Alan McCoy, RPT
Eastern Washington University
amccoy at mail.ewu.edu
509-359-4627


> From: "rwest1 at unl.edu" <rwest1 at unl.edu>
> Reply-To: "College and University Technicians <caut at ptg.org>" <caut at ptg.org>
> Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2008 08:20:00 -0500
> To: "College and University Technicians <caut at ptg.org>" <caut at ptg.org>
> Subject: Re: [CAUT] Electronic Tuning Preferences
>
> 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