A440 under fire

[A440A@AOL.COM]

Newton writes:

>Why bother!  Tell them different pitches cost you more time
>therefore more cost to them and charge it.  If it gets them where
>it hurts they change their tune quickly enough.
 
   Hmm,  not to advocate no devil or anything,  now tripping over this 
soapbox.......

     As far as 441 goes,  that is just 4 little bitty cents away from 440.   
In a stage environment, with people, horns, and lights  all getting heated up 
during a performance, it isn't uncommon for there to be a two or three cent 
change over the course of the evening. Pianos are often cooler before the  
show,  so 441 to start might be what these people have found effective in 
minimizing problems.  With a machine that compensates for the difference,  4 
cents is easy to do in one careful pass.  (Any more than 5 and I go through 
twice).  It is one beauty of the ETD.

On the other side of machina,  I got this soap right here..............,  
     (IMHO), a tuning machine is of little value when the piano has "sagged" 
unevenly   throughout its scale during a hard first half under the lights and 
inspiration of, say, Liszt and Brahms and the tuner has perhaps 10 minutes to 
deal with it.  
     It is at these times that the judgement and ear of the tuner must make 
the maximum repair to the harmony in a triage sort of way. Sometimes unisons 
absorb all available time and the octaves are left alone, perhaps  in some 
"angelic",  choral stretch.  I have heard beautiful music out of a piano  
that "expanded" between tuning and performance. (think an extra 20 cents over 
three octaves!)
    When there is time to do more than unisons, the piano's worst octaves 
will have to be thrown together, but there are some very harsh thirds waiting 
for the tuner that haphardly makes octaves out of things.  ( don't ask me how 
I know)

   This is a point that the beginning tuner should grasp;  that the machine 
will get you up and tuning very quickly, but if you neglect learning how to 
tune aurally, there will be a place you can't go, i.e. the performance 
platform.  If you do find yourself in this situation, and have only a machine 
to give you information,  the odds are very good that you will do  damage to 
your reputation.   
   There is no substitute for being able to aurally judge all the normal 
interval widths, and being able to arrange them in one or more consistant, 
acceptable temperaments.  
Regards
Ed Foote RPT