Unison Flatter than each Individual string?

[Bill Ballard]

At 8:24 PM -0700 8/21/02, David Ilvedson wrote:
>With a tuning fork, the "aural" tuner strikes the fork and roughs in 
>the piano's note to the fork.  Then, for instance,  probably checks 
>with a 10th interval between the piano's F-A and the piano's F and 
>the fork's A. Makes adjustments to the piano's A4 string and with 
>equal beating of these two 10ths', the note is absolutely in tune 
>with the fork.  Is this not archaic?  With a ETD you tune the note 
>until the lights/pattern stops and you have and absolute A440 or 
>whatever pitch you want in a few moments.  Is this ETD tuned note 
>any less of a tuned note?  I got to feel there's a lot of ego 
>involved in tuning aurally with a tuning fork...that and masochism...

I used a ETD this summer and I was grateful for its sharp ear and 
sharper memory. An RCT. But I simply enjoy "rolling out a tuning" 
aurally. And I appreciate an ability to do it, because for me I see 
it as a gift. But this is the new millenium and if one wasn't born 
with, or otherwise developed the ability for aural tuning, one can 
always go out and buy it as a module to insert with all the rest of 
one's native skills. There are plenty of tuners who do a wonderful 
job of taking care of pianos, with plenty of the other skills 
required to be a good piano service person. The particular ability to 
tune aurally may have been one of them in decades past but it no 
longer is.

These pianos are being properly tuned, are they not? Harmony is 
harmony whether a human being laid it out, or a machine ciphered it 
out. (yelling from across the room..."just like the ad said, 'Now YOU 
can tune pianos, while you watch TV' "...Botox injected.)

At 9:42 AM +0200 8/22/02, Richard Brekne wrote:
>I have gotten into the habit of using intervals to tune stubborn 
>unisons.  Ofte
>times you can be pretty darn sure of a clean unison only to find it wangs
>uncomfortably much against a a neighboring 3rd or 4th. I end up just adjusting
>the unison til it sounds clean against both. Another advantage of the one mute
>approach.

Quite literally, RicB, you're splitting the difference. You know 
where the beat rates of the two conflicting intervals should be and 
you split the error between the two of them, so that each is equally 
near to where it should be. And suddenly, the whole spreadsheet 
changes. <just kidding> .

Virgil Smith made a passing mention of this in his PTJ article, 
sometime in the early 90s' ('91, 92?). This was. He said that when 
you run across an octave which needed to be adjusted (after finishing 
the unison), frequently the error was small enough that all was 
required was to slightly crack the unison (up or down, as needed) 
with a mistuning of one string, and immediately to retune the other 
string(s). Virgil of course never did his closest tuning with 
numbers, and so he never suggested that the amount of correction was 
a rational one. But there is a specific amount for that correction.

About three years into the business, I discovered that the beat rate 
of the complaining octave was the measure of the error, which then 
could be applied to the note needing correction. Play a 3:1 12th, say 
C5 and F3, memorize the spread of the beat rate between them, then on 
the note to be corrected, pull one string harp or flat (as dictated), 
so as to recreate that beat rate. (That's why you memorized it, 
right?) Next, pull up the other strings to complete the unison. The 
offending unison has been moved in the right direction, by the amount 
it was off. (Now, if it's still off the mark, then the amount 
corrected has not reduced the inevitable sag in pitch to a negligible 
amount.)

All I've done is to add a means of measuring the correction needed, 
to what's probably a very common technique of mopping up error in the 
tuning. RicB, Virgil Smith. But I wouldn't want my toolbag to be 
without it.

Now, back to ETDs. They'll tell you which individual notes don't 
match pitch. They haven't a clue as to where all the other notes in 
that field may be. ETDs can't play chords. Human being can.

Bill Ballard RPT
NH Chapter, P.T.G.

"I gotta go ta woik...."
     ...........Ian Shoales, Duck's Breath Mystery Theater
+++++++++++++++++++++