trichords unisons

[Bill Ballard]

At 10:52 PM -0400 5/28/02, Benny L. Tucker wrote:
>     I may be looking at this wrong, but to me a perfect unison should not
>have ANY rolling of ANY partial for the duration of the sound. Is this to
>much to ask for, or is this the way most of you folks normally tune?

That's the ideal. You've also discovered that, quite separate from 
how often the ideal unison appears on real pianos, your ears are far 
ahead of what you hands can accomplish. The curse of being human, 
that our perception is always pointing up our handiwork as being 
short of  the mark.

>     FWIW, I have absolutely no trouble with the bass or the high treble,
>it's that dang tenor section. It seems like the better I get, the more I can
>hear, the worse I actually tune.

Exactly.

>I can do the perfect unisons, but for me that means striking the key, and
>waiting, and waiting , and waiting for the slow roll then move the hammer
>"more like add or release pressure", while pounding, then when I think I've
>got it right let it ring and wait, and wait and wait etc. You get the
>picture.

I think you need to be using the vernier adjust knob. Remember that a 
unison whose seventh partials are rolling @ 1/4 bps will have the 
fundamental turning over every 28 seconds. I'm assuming here that you 
can zero-beat individual partials. If you have access to the PTJ 
CD-ROM, look up an article entitled "Your Friend, the Unison".

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

"No one builds the *perfect* piano, you can only remove the obstacles 
to that perfection during the building."
     ...........LaRoy Edwards, Yamaha International Corp
+++++++++++++++++++++