ears vs. eyes..kinda long-winded

[David Andersen]

Good post, Dave, commenting on a great post by Phil.  For me, I love to 
tune good pianos.  It brings me pleasure to do 2 or 3 a day, plus some 
voicing and regulation.  I make great money, hang out with great people, 
get paid to be left alone for long stretches of time, add tremendous 
value to the pianos I'm working on, and bring pleasure to serious 
pianists.  Win-win-win-win-win. There's no right and wrong; just what 
allows you to do your job and live your life with pleasure and passion.
I'm really glad this forum exists.  Beofre it, I was dead-set against 
using machines: a scared Luddite.
Now I'm not.  I still feel strongly about my position, but I've seen the 
value of other positions.  Cool.

with respect.....David Andersen


>Phil, I resemble the Prophead remark.
>
>Seriously, I was surprised how close the aural tuning was to the FAC
>calculation, except for the lowest bass and the highest treble.  Between C2
>and A7, the aural tuning is just lightly scattered around the FAC
>calculation.  This could be due to 1) the small but significant differences
>that good aural tuning makes over the FAC calculation, or 2) small random
>variation of the aural tuning around the FAC calculation curve, or 3) the
>small random variation that ANY actual tuning has around the the FAC
>calculated curve....  I will retune using the SAT III and remeasure to see
>how my FAC tuning actually matches the calculated curve.  I suppose this has
>been done and published many years ago, but I can/t find any data.
>
>I did, however, really lke the tuning Phil made aurally.  It sounded
>different, and perhaps more alive.  Hard to compare when you can't listen to
>them side by side, though.  I guess I need another C2.
>
>In the bass, Phil's tuning was not stretched quite as much as the FAC.  In
>the highest treble, it was stretched more.
>
>This small experiment has urged me on in my quest to learn to tune aurally.
>Although I am an engineer and thus a PROPHEAD apparently, I also have ears,
>and I believe that my tuning will benefit from using both the machine and
>the ears.
>
>If anyone would like, we could post the plots of Phil and FAC, but I won't
>clutter the list unless someone is interested.  Or we could send privately.
>
>Great to have this forum, especially for us grasshoppers.
>
>Dave Smith
>Pine Island FL