Hi Susan et al, It seems to me that all we are saying is that beauty is subjective. To my mind there are two paths that we try to follow, which are sometimes but not often parrallel. If a piano is very stable then there is more chance of being able to do *concert* type tuning. If it is *not* and the client refuses our recommendations to make it so, then it may be in the best interests of the client to deliberately leave some areas of the piano on the edge of sounding less pleasant. In particular in my area the tenor will drop very dramatically from summer to winter. If I am tuning in the summer I will deliberately sacrifice the beauty of that area pitch wise and leave it as sharp as I dare. I will also "float" the pitch. Every effort is made to include the client in this decision making process, partly in hops that they will start to understand that I can't do my best work for them. The other path is doing a tuning as perfectly as I can. I use the Baldassin Sanderson temperament, and a single mute. Every unison must be clean enough to tune from. Of course, I can only do this when there is from a *musical* point of view almost zero pitch change at A4. (zero would be better). The real adavantage imho of *any* measuring device is to let the technician know quickly and accurately "which* path to choose. Let me close with two questions. Does a camera "enjoy" the process of creating a copy of a summer day's sunset? Would a blind man appreciate the visual beauty Mona Lisa? Regards, Don Rose, B.Mus., A.M.U.S., A.MUS., R.M.T., R.P.T. Tuner for the Saskatchewan Centre of the Arts drose@dlcwest.com http://donrose.htmlplanet.com/ 3004 Grant Rd. REGINA, SK S4S 5G7 306-352-3620 or 1-888-29t-uner
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