Tuning Tests at the Yamah Academy

[Richard Brekne]

Isaac OLEG wrote:

>Hello Richard,
>
>Great description, I noticed yet that kind of minimal strech (or no
>stretch) used by Yamaha concert tuners.
>
>And that is what the VT100 in normal mode tend for.
>  
>
We were tuning C2 instruments, and the PT100 had only a C3 curve built 
in.  Evidently they thought it was close enough for jazz as it were. 
Like I said tho.. the graphs part seemed more as an aid to seeing 
general tuning tendencies then anything else.

>Did you relate that to a resasearch to phase effect in octave tuning
>(like in unison tuning ?)
>  
>

Actually, tho I did very well indeed... I and no one else there had much 
time to do anything else then to finish our assigned tasks in as short a 
time span as is possible.  In order to score high, you needed every bit 
of the two hours alloted to raise the pitch 2 cents, get it stable and 
fine tune.  I know some may scoff at that... but I would just say to 
them... go and try and please these guys in an hours time.  They stop 
you after 2 hours... but they dont look in on you to see if you've 
finished early...so they wont be biased. Its just that they require a 
very precisely defined tuning and it takes time to execute it well. 

>I had a little training lately myself, (concert prep)  and we worked a
>lot the tuning of the attack of tone, the energy level, projection,
>and the "elasticity of tone".
>  
>
Please describe your experience for us then. :)

>I actually can't absolutely not listen to any partial while tuning
>unisson, nor octaves for that matter.
>  
>
Me neither... I think its both a blessing and a bane at the same time.  
Sometimes it would be nice to be able to better aurally zero in on just 
one coincident pair then I can, other times its very nice that I hear 
the conglomerate so well as I do.  Ying and Yang as always.

>Seem to me that the natural "pitch lock" that we use while tuning
>unisons, protect us from any partial deviance, or beat for that
>matter.
>  
>

Not sure I understand what you mean by that.  Want to try and rephrase 
or explain more ?

>Just "building tone", that's all (but this does not avoid justness
>problems indeed)
>
>Best Regards
>
>Isaac OLEG
>
>  
>
Cheers
RicB