[CAUT] using as ETD, was Re: Too tall!!??

[Jim Busby]

Jeff,

Yes with everything you said below. Stress, tuning stability, "trusting" the ETD, etc.
I don't really know why I resisted for so many years... Ward Guthrie did too, now he says the same as me. 
Maybe we've both joined the dark side... <G>

Regards,
Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Jeff Tanner
Sent: Saturday, April 10, 2010 9:25 AM
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [CAUT] using as ETD, was Re: Too tall!!??


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Susan Kline" <skline at peak.org>
> Stress?
>
> I suppose anyone who feels stress while tuning should get one ...
>
> Susan Kline, aural dinosaur

Hi Susan,
I've always felt an aural tuning takes as much out of me as a high energy 
musical performance of the same length of time.  After 26 years, I still 
don't see how one can aurally tune a piano and it not be stressful with the 
level of concentration required. Tuning aurally in the university was 
exponentially more stressful. All that hard effort wiped out in just a 
matter of days, and sometimes hours really takes a toll on the old psyche. 
Buying an EDT was the best thing I ever did for stress reduction.  Er, 2nd 
best thing I ever did for stress reduction. Quitting the university job was 
the best thing, by far.

Jim Busby, I agree with everything you said, especially the agreeing with 
the EDT differences in tuning part.  Our aural tuning rules don't take into 
account that the area of the piano we usually set an aural temperament is 
the worst scaled part of the piano. When we insist on making that section 
work with our rules, we introduce errors into the tuning that only increase 
as we expand the tuning into the rest of the scale.  Once I started trusting 
that the EDT was actually creating a more equal temperament than my aural 
rules did, I started noticing the overall tuning worked out much better. 
Also, storing tunings and using the same tuning every time on the same piano 
exponentially increases stability.

Jeff Tanner