Jon, I've been in practice rooms so glassy-loud that this would be an important consideration. I think they should be altered so that the students don't get hearing damage from practicing at full volume in them. I wonder what some schools would do if they had to bring their practice rooms within OSHA standards for noise exposure in use? I make a distinction between settling blows and the normal listening-blows. When two notes are struck together, they need to be loud enough to hear, but soft enough that the tone isn't distorted. In a reasonably quiet room I could go on doing this all day without my ears feeling tired. That is, other parts of me get tired, but not my ears. The settling blows are -- settling blows only, on one note at a time. I tune it, tweak it slightly to be sure it doesn't want to stray, then give it a good conk to be _sure_ it doesn't want to stray, then immediately play it softly so I can hear it properly and be sure it didn't stray. If a settling blow changes a note, I start over, because it shouldn't be able to change the note if I've done it right. If I find a bad unison from a previous concert, I tune the offending string(s) before I do the general tuning, and give the note several hard blows. That gives it time to think about matters before I get back to it. I'm starting to wonder how many people neglect settling blows because the ETD says the note is right. Probably not many here, but maybe in the general tuning world a few more. And then one wonders how many people automatically do the same settling blows in all registers, just sort of on general principles, instead of only where they are needed. My gosh, one guy says that the ETD directions don't do him any good because he's an aural tuner, and we reopen this can of digital-aural worms ... Susan At 05:17 AM 4/11/2010, Jon wrote: >> And if the settling blows are the same, where is the saving of db? > >When tuning an octave aurally, you must strike two keys multiple >times while deciding on placement. With an ETD, you are only >striking one key. So it cuts the db level impacting your ear. > >There are still double-key checks but the incessant assault of >two keys constantly being struck is gone. > >The first time I used the VT for practice rooms I was very >pleasantly surprised at how I felt after tuning 4 pianos, I felt >like I had only tuned one aurally. > >-- > > >Regards, > >Jon Page -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20100411/814a4da2/attachment.htm>
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