Notes 85-86-87-88

Avery Todd atodd@UH.EDU
Fri, 11 Apr 1997 12:42:33 -0500


Sy, Dick and others,

   For aural tuning, a little trick I learned years ago for tuning unisons
on the top 4 - 6, or so, notes is to listen to the *sound* (not the pitch
or, necessarily, even the beats) until you hear a bell-like tone come in
as you're moving the string.
   The same type of thing might help on the octaves also, if you play the
notes *together*, not separately. To me, this has been especially useful on
notes that have bad false beats in that area. This way you don't have to
try to separate the two and can get you extremely close. On octaves, follow
that up with your usual tuning and musical checks.
   I realize this doesn't give you any "intentional" stretch from the note
one octave below, but I don't like a lot of beating octaves up there
anyway. That's why I said do your usual checks and add more if the piano
needs it.

Avery

P.S. I'm not trying to get the stretch thread going again. :-)

>Thanks for being so honest.  I've tuned electronically for over 20 years
>and have always found sharp trebles by most aural tuners. (Not meant to be
>anything against aural tuners!!)  I once read the reason is the notes are
>not tuned by listening to the beat, but by listening to the oct 6 note
>followed quickly by the octave 7 note.  This will get the higher note sharp
>every time. It is understandable that it is very difficult if not
>impossible to always hear the beat on those notes as the freq is so high.
>So the answer is to get a SAT which you did.   I have found pianos sharp in
>the high treble that were otherwise 50 cents or more flat and hadn't been
>tuned in many years.
>
> Dick Beaton RPT

_____________________________________
Avery Todd, RPT
Moores School of Music
University of Houston
713-743-3226
atodd@uh.edu
http://www.uh.edu/music/
_____________________________________






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