Verituner

[A440A@AOL.COM]

Greetings, 
Ron writes:
> While I'm a far cry from being an expert tuner, what
>  feeble results I do produce come from my own talents, ears, brains, and
>  hands. They almost certainly aren't the best of all possible tunings
>under  the circumstances, but the process of creating and constructing these
> flawed little works is, for me, what makes it tolerable to go out there
> and  do it day after day. 

      Hmm, well,  if aural tuning satisfies an individual's motivational 
needs, there is nothing wrong with doing it that way.  However, in my case, 
even after the best tuning education on the planet and then 16 aural years in 
a very demanding environment, a SAT made me a better tuner after just a very 
short time.  
      In my case, I am not psychologically equipped to tune anything but the 
"best possible tuning under the circumstances",(probably a little 
obsessive/compulsive aspect there!).  I have developed a clientele that pays 
far above the going rate for the security, (recording session are way too expe
nsive to stop and wait for a note or octave to be fixed), so I have to do 
what produces the best tuning, and I have found that my ears combined with a 
machine is the way to do that. 
      If someone wants to make the point that a superior tuning can be had 
with ears alone, as opposed to ears and a machine, I certainly need to hear 
their results before I believe it, and I ain't heard it yet. 
    It is interesting that Virgil Smith, (whose work, by any of our 
standards,  represents an ultimate aural tuning) produces a tuning that is 
equivalent to a machine tuning from Jim Coleman.  If whole roomfuls of piano 
techs are evenly divided on which of these two approaches are are better, are 
the differences any more than academic??  I think not.  
     So, a valid decision to forego a machine may be made for reasons other 
than the results, but don't tell me that one or another is superior.   And 
for all of those techs who don't think their aural tuning is quite up to 
Virgil's level, you must decide for yourself if the additional quality found 
with a machine is worth the change.
     
>Eventually, I'll give up and either buy (or write)
>an ETD, or quit tuning altogether. For now, it's me, my fork, and my stone
> age  methods.

Cool, Ron.  Life is short. 
Regards, 
Ed Foote RPT