[CAUT] String Coupling / SB and Bridge stiffness...and maybe Pure Sound

[Richard Brekne]

Missed this in the course of the day.  Would just like to mention that 
in all our tuning exams... why is it then that we precisely reject the 
(first) approach you give below ?  We start off perhaps with a machine 
tuning... but then three RPT's tweak the tuning for sometimes hours to 
arrive at the tuning that in the end is recorded into the softeware, and 
the offsets to the machine generated curve for some notes are always 
more then just slightly significant.  And Jim was no different that day 
in Reno.

Or... take your ETD and sample the inharmonicity needed to generate the 
curve ten times, saving each time as a different file, and then compare 
the sets of tuning curves... enter the data into a spreadsheet, 
translate into hz and look at the variance of various important 
intervals in terms of bps for the 10 tunings.  Its an eye opener.

The hybrid approach you mention is very close to what I do all the 
time... but I myself can not help but let myself be influence by what my 
ear tells me as well as what the dial is saying.  Either is subject to 
mis-interpretation... so the to complement each other. 

Cheers
RicB


On Jun 13, 2009, at 5:12 PM, Richard Brekne wrote:

 > He said at the time that for almost anyone who ever had become   
reasonably skilled at ear tuning it would be really very difficult  to 
completely turn off the ears.


    I think it is very easy to "turn off the ears" while tuning, other 
    than unisons: don't play any intervals, just play individual notes. 
    Then there is and can be no aural component to the decision of
    where  to put a note. Another way is to play other notes (an octave,
    12th,  double 8v, double 8v 5th, triple 8v below for high treble)
    and make  your decision based on where the coincident of those notes
    partials  line up, what compromise is best. That is a kind of hybrid
    approach,  but certainly one isn't making decisions based on what
    one is hearing  at the time. That is how I tune. Or that is how I
    set up tunings,  which I save and reuse. I make decisions based on
    what experience  tells me will work best for the piano as a whole,
    which is often in  conflict with what my ear would tell me based on
    listening to the 8v  and 12th.

    In any case, good to learn a little more about what Dr Jim has to
    say  about the process that went into the legendary tuneoffs.
    Regards,
    Fred Sturm