Hi Ed. Nice posting, tho I do have a few comments as usual :) You see the thing is that there is so much distracting debate over whether or not ETD tunings are "just as good as ear tunings", whether or not one can learn to tune with them or not, and all the rest that their real value and their real weaknesses never seem to be taken for what they are. Seems to me there is too much fervour on both sides. First let me say that tunings on the level we should be talking about in this kind of discussion are all going to be beyond just acceptable. All tunings done by masters of aural and / or ETD tuners are going to be very very fine tunings indeed, and what differences there are are not going to be noticed directly by more then a handfull of people. That number may grow in time if people start conciously listening for the differences. But even so such listening should (could) only be appreciative in nature. How many times have we all said that past a certain level in tuning there is no longer questions of whats correct or incorrect, rather it is a question of what choices we make and whether or not we can justify these... how concious these choices are. The ETD is programmed to produce a very clearly defined set of choices which govern the resulting tuning. Perhaps the RCT is best at allowing a manipulation of these parameters with its "equalizer" facility. But still it is bound to these once choosen. That there are other viable priorities in the choices we can make within the scope of what can be refered to as a fine ET tuning seems quite clear to me. That some aural tuners employ some of these seems also quite clear, as well as the potential for creating tuning effects that ETD's are not capable of creating directly. The ETD simply has one very particular "tuning style" as it were. There is nothing inherently better or worse about this then any other well executed set of tuning priorities. But it is what it is, and it isnt anything else. We get so wrapped up in the defensive end of this debate that many seem to have concluded that there is nothing more to be learned about what we can do with tunings, that the ETD'd definition is truly the one and only "correct" one.... to the degree that we have begun to equate a pianos quality with its degree of conformance to what the ETD wants. This is odd in the face of the realization that there is no true correct or incorrect way of tuning the piano. There is only the degree to which we successfully execute our tuning objectives. The Tuneoffs were meaningless in almost every sense as they revealed at their very best the limitations of our tuning awareness's at the time. They say nothing about what is possible to discern, only what was discernable at the present level of tuning awareness. Instead of being the stimulus to find out more about what we can accomplish with tunings, these have only served as some justification for using ETD's. Arguments like the "obscurity of our work" or that "nobody can tell the difference anyways" dont hold any water at all in my book. These are excuses at best and just plain wrong at worst. I find for example that just about every pianist reacts to the difference between a standard ETD ET and a Perfect 12ths priority ET. The difference between the two is slight when measured, yet the affects created when playing are quite noticibly different. Seems to me that we should get beyond the arguments about what ETD's are good for (as their strengths and weaknesses should be really quite obvious at this point) and start looking at how we can use them to take us places "tuningwise" we have not gone before. To assume there are no such places seems silly to my mind. Cheers RicB A440A@aol.com wrote: > > > RicB writes: > > I debate the whole validity of this continuing "value debate" about ETDs and Aural > > tunings. .... Or perhaps one subscribes to the idea > > that there is nothing more to learn ?? > > Greetings, > There is always more to learn. sometimes history. Today, the fervor, > acrimony, and negative vibes in the Machine/Ear contention only affect a > small minority in either camp. -- Richard Brekne RPT, N.P.T.F. UiB, Bergen, Norway mailto:rbrekne@broadpark.no http://home.broadpark.no/~rbrekne/ricmain.html
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC