Aural?

[Kent Swafford]

on 10/6/00 1:56 AM, Richard Moody at remoody@midstatesd.net wrote:

>> However, there is no comparable situation in the bass, and FAC tunings are
>> likely to score perfectly in the bass. I have personally scored a tuning
>> exam in which Dr. Sanderson "took" the exam using a straight FAC tuning.
>> The bass score was perfect; the high treble lost a few points.
>> 
>> Kent Swafford
> 
> What piano was this?

Probably a Young Chang G185.

> What is the criterion to "score perfectly in the bass"?   I assume this
> means it must "sound right."

All pianos used on the tuning exam are tuned by a committee of 3 RPT's,
including at least one certified examiner. The committee tuning is used as a
reference against which to compare the examinee's tuning. Therefore, the
examinee is not required to get a piano to "sound right", but it would be
good if he could get it sounding as good as the committee tuning.  :)

> Your scoring of a perfect "exam" is
> interesting not so much on who scored it but what piano it was scored on.  I
> am wondering if you know of pianos that can't get a perfect score.

A perfect score comes not from get a piano sounding perfect, but rather
tuning it, within certain tolerances, as well as or better than the
committee tuned it.

> If not I
> would like to submit two or three that I have never gotten to sound right in
> the bass.  These are grands with quality names like McPhail, or Conover
> Cable,  5'4 or larger.   ---ric

Pianos used for the exam are usually grands, 5'9" or larger. Such pianos are
usually scaled evenly enough to be quite tunable. It was PTG's intent to
develop an exam that tests an examinee's ability to tune under conditions of
"minimum adversity"; therefore reasonably good, larger pianos are used for
the exam.

Kent Swafford