I've noticed that in Journal articles, etc. tuning discussions refer to cents when discussing how much difference there is between where a piano is when one encounters it, and A440. I know that 100 cents is the distance between halfsteps, and that when a piano is a half or whole step flat (or #) I can roughly say that it is 100 or 200 cents. But when someone says a piano is 10 or 12 cents off, I wonder if this is of that great use to me. The exact cent amounts always seem to be small, for example, " the piano was 17 cents low". Nobody ever seems to say,"The instrument was 92 cents flat". One may say that a change of 5 or 10 cents constitutes a pitch raise, but as an aural tuner I find I understand 440 or 435 or whatever beat per second rate, and I wonder if there is a calculation to translate cents to bps. Are exact cent amounts mainly a tool for those using electronic tuners? Any responses would be appreciated. Thanks Gordon R. Large, RPT Mt. Vernon, Maine
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