Coleman vs Coleman Tuneoff

[Doug Richards]

David,
I was one of the guys in the class.  I don't think Jim said that we didn't
hear the difference.  I did.  It's just so vague when real music is played
(he covered 6 or so key signitures) that it was very difficult to decide
which piano sounded "equal".  After the music was over and voting was done
he did the usual 3rd's and octave so it was obvious which piano was which.
I was in the group that voted for the wrong piano too, so you can now
totally disregard what I've said...

doug richards
San Jose, CA


> -----Original Message-----
> From:	David ilvedson [SMTP:ilvey@jps.net]
> Sent:	Tuesday, February 16, 1999 9:20 AM
> To:	pianotech@ptg.org
> Subject:	Re: Coleman vs Coleman Tuneoff
> 
> Jim,
> 
> Unfortunately I wasn't at the Cal Convention this year, but I 
> have got to ask what you played?  I would think you would have 
> to play a number of pieces in different keys to get a real 
> judgement from those poor defenseless tuners.  Did you play a 
> piece in the best sounding key for the Moore tuning?  
> 
> David Ilvedson, RPT
> 
> 
> 
> 
> > Date:          Tue, 16 Feb 1999 16:32:37 -0700 (MST)
> > From:          "Jim Coleman, Sr." <pianotoo@imap2.asu.edu>
> > Subject:       Coleman vs Coleman Tuneoff
> > To:            pianotech@ptg.org
> > Reply-to:      pianotech@ptg.org
> 
> > I thought there may be some who would be interested in the latest
> Tuneoff.
> > 
> > At the California State Conference Feb 12-14, I taught a class on
> Advanced
> > Tuning. At the beginning of each class I presented two identical pianos
> > which had just been tuned in different temperaments. One was just a
> standard
> > SAT FAC tuning which incidentally is a very good tuning on a Yamaha C3.
> The 
> > other tuning was the Moore 18th Century Well Temperament which had some 
> > notes tuned 2.5 and 3.0 cents off from equal temperament.
> > 
> > After playing identical selections on the two pianos, I asked the class
> > which piano they thought was the one with the "funny" tuning (actually,
> I
> > used the words Moore Well tempered tuning). In the Friday class, the
> voting 
> > was fairly even. 54% thought the FAC tuning was the Well Tempered Tuning
> and
> > only 46% guessed correctly. In the Sunday afternoon class, 80% thought
> that
> > the FAC Tuning was the Well Tempered Tuning. I next asked which piano
> they
> > liked best as far as tuning was concerned. It was almost unanimously
> decided
> > in favor of the Well Tempered Tuning. All of the voting was done without
> the
> > audience really knowing which piano had which tuning.
> > 
> > I asked for a show of hands as to how many in the audience were
> musicians.
> > My estimate was at about 95%. I confessed my ulterior motive for doing
> this
> > kind of demonstration. In 1977 Dr. Sanderson and I were asked by the
> then
> > President Don Morton to develop a standardized Tuning test for the
> Guild. 
> > We adjusted our scoring procedures so that 80% of the then RTT members
> would
> > pass at the 80% score. Being a perfectionist as I am in some areas, I
> began
> > pushing for tighter scoring in the Temperament area. We later adopted a 
> > multiplier system such that the total error points would be multiplied
> by
> > 2.5 and then subtracted from 100% to give the final Temperament Score. 
> > We have used this tighter scoring procedure for almost 20 years now. The
> 
> > question in my mind is: "Have we tightened our scoring to satisfy the
> > elitests? Are we now just 'gilding the Lily'? If an audience of piano 
> > technicians who are also musicians cannot tell the difference between
> > equal temperament and a mild historical temperament, are we on an ego
> trip?
> > Are we setting standards to protect our little clique? Are our standards
> set
> > to protect the public from shoddy work? Which is it?"
> > 
> > I asked for a show of hands in the advanced tuning class for those who
> think
> > we have elevated our temperament standards too high. The voting was
> almost
> > unanimous. I mentioned that I had talked to some very well respected
> tuners
> > who also agreed with me that we are guilding the lily. I do believe that
> > we should keep the 1 cent tolerance for scoring the points in the
> mid-range
> > and temperament section, but that we should relax the conversion 
> > multipliers. I further believe that we should add some questions in our
> > written test to include various test intervals to be used in making 
> > decisions as to whether an interval is too wide or too narrow. With this
> > covered in the written test, we can save time during the tuning test
> scoring
> > by eliminating much of the hesitancy on the part of the examinee in
> > aurally verifying his penalty points. I do still believe that Equal 
> > Temperament should be our testing standard, but that we have just
> > made it more difficult for associate members to upgrade because of our
> > arbitrarily tightened standards.
> > 
> > This is the third year in which I have conducted this type of test in my
> > classes. The results have been even more demonstrative in other classes.
> At
> > the Arizona Conference this year and at the Calif. State Conf. last
> year,
> > almost the entire audience guessed wrong when asked to identify the
> piano
> > which had the Well temperament.
> > 
> > My question to this group is: Do you feel that our temperament standards
> 
> > are a little too high? I would like some feedback. I am not promoting
> > Historical or hysterical tunings. In all of the classes where I have
> done
> > this type of test, it was conceded that both tunings were good tunings.
> > 
> > Have I opened a "can or worms" or what?
> > 
> > Jim Coleman, Sr.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> David Ilvedson, RPT
> Pacifica, CA
> ilvey@jps.net