trichords unisons

[Farrell]

> The PTG Tuning Exam's tolerance is 0.9 cents.  Any unison found to have more 
> than 0.9 cents difference between any 2 strings of a trichord unison will 
> have points deducted.  Basically, this means that any unison must not have a 
> beat in it that is about 1 beat per second or more. 

I thought there were about 4 cents per cycle per second in the middle of the keyboard. So would you not need a difference of 4 cents between two strings to get 1 beat per second? That would make the PTG exam tolerance of about 1/4 beat per second, or 1 beat per four seconds. Or am I missing something?

Terry Farrell
  
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Billbrpt@AOL.COM>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Friday, May 31, 2002 2:15 PM
Subject: Re: trichords unisons


> There were many good comments made about this.  The truth is that no piano 
> will ever be 100% perfect.  I have never, in 33 years, ever tuned one to an 
> absolute state of perfection.  Certainly, no one who routinely does a 2 pass 
> tuning in 45 minutes as I do can claim the unisons to be perfect.
> 
> When I do my highest level work, I can spend hours on the tuning and still 
> never quite feel it is perfect but as Kent suggested, when I have done all 
> that I could do in the time I had and step back to listen to it, WOW!!  
> That's where the word "stunning" applies.
> 
> It might be said that neither temperament, octaves nor unisons can ever be 
> really perfected but in the attempt to so, one arrives at the sound which is 
> really the most beautiful.  If unisons really could be made to be absolutely 
> perfect, it might not really be the best sound.  I never try to deliberately 
> mistune unisons, however.  I always try to get the cleanest, most beatless 
> sound I can whether I am doing an ordinary, routine tuning or the highest 
> level I can possibly achieve.
> 
> The PTG Tuning Exam's tolerance is 0.9 cents.  Any unison found to have more 
> than 0.9 cents difference between any 2 strings of a trichord unison will 
> have points deducted.  Basically, this means that any unison must not have a 
> beat in it that is about 1 beat per second or more.  A unison that beats once 
> in 2 seconds would probably not have points deducted against it.
> 
> The Examinee has 30 minutes to tune the unisons from C3-B4.  This might seem 
> longer than necessary but it is the rare individual who scores a perfect 100 
> on unison tuning.
> 
> As Newton said, unison tuning is the easiest concept for a novice to 
> understand but any veteran technician will tell you that it is the very 
> hardest task to truly master.  In my opinion, a technician who can hide a 
> false beat with unison tuning has superior skills.  The original author of 
> this thread does seem to have the right ideas.
> 
> Bill Bremmer RPT
> Madison, Wisconsin
>  <A HREF="http://www.billbremmer.com/">Click here: -=w w w . b i l l b r e m m e r . c o m =-</A> 
>