Paul, I've been asked a couple times to tune the piano to the organ. I do not match the piano to the organ unless I am asked to. In a church with an old pipe organ that can't be tuned up to pitch, I checked a number of pipes and picked out a happy medium for the piano. Their Yamaha grand now always gets tuned 9c flat. If the organ can be easily tuned (such as electric/electronic, I think), then I suggest they have the organ tuned correctly, rather than tuning the piano incorrectly to the incorrect organ. I ran into that, too. I only have to tune two pianos together in one case. They are both Everett studios of about the same age, so I usually use one RCT tuning for both. If I had to tune two vastly different pianos, such as a spinet and a grand, I would tune each to its own scale at A440. You won't find this arrangement at a fine concert anyway. If the pianos are close in type and quality, you could sample each and average them on RCT, although I never took the time to learn how to do that. For your third scenario, in churches where a piano is used with an electric/electronic keyboard, it is also used with guitars and what-all. I tune the piano correctly and leave it at that. The better keyboards are tunable anyway. If an organization is using a cheap keyboard that can't be tuned, it should be close enough to pitch, and if it's not, no one will notice anyway. Regards, Clyde Hollinger Paul Mulik wrote: > Potentially silly questions from a novice technician: > > A: Suppose a piano needs to be tuned to another instrument (let's say a > synthesizer or pipe organ). Should I just make sure A4 matches and then > tune the piano as normal, or do I need to determine precisely what > temperament was used on the other instrument? In the case of a synthesizer, > I would think the temperament might vary depending on the setting (for > example "concert grand" might use a different temperament than "honky-tonk > piano" or "harpsichord"). > > 2: Suppose I'm going to tune two pianos together, using RCT. It seems to > me I could just calculate a tuning for one of the pianos, and then use the > same tuning for both instruments (without recording the second piano). Any > reason why this wouldn't work? > > III: Going back to part A, what if I used RCT to record the other > instrument (let's say it's a synthesizer), and then used that to tune the > piano? What I mean is, suppose I started up the program as I always do, but > after clicking "record," suppose I played each of the A's on the synthesizer > (instead of the A's on the piano) and then proceeded to tune the piano as > usual. Would this work, or is this a crazy idea?
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