Ragtime/Honky Tonk tuning, was out of tune

[Alan Forsyth]

Hello List and anonymous ones,

Carl Teplitski wrote;

>> "For some time now, I've been thinking of sending this post to the list ,
to see if there was a definitive answer . I've procrastinated, because I
thought it might be a dumb question.  What I would like to know, is this. Is
the tuning we hear on Rag- Time recordings, a special tuning, or
just a piano which happens to be badly out of tune." >>

Tis not a dumb question. There is an official way of tuning a piano
honky-tonk style. I meant to reply to others who asked in a previous thread
(out of tune) what the 6+ 6- method was when I mentioned it. It's what I
call the 6 up 6 down method.

You tune to normal equal temperament, but when you tune the unisons you
raise the right string by 6 Hz (beats) and lower the left string by 6 Hz.
This is starting at A440. As you progress downwards you must gradually
decrease the out of tune beat rates progressively so that by the time you
get to A220 the right string should be 3 beats up and the left string 3
beats down. So on and so forth. Leave the bass alone where you have bichords
and monochords. Going upwards from A440 you must increase the beat rate
progressively so that you double the beat rate for every octave; by A880 the
right string will be tuned 12 beats sharp and the left string 12 beats flat,
and so on. Octaves must be tuned perfect. You should actually try it, but it
is by no means easy.

I repeat what I wrote in a previous post in the  "out of tune" thread about
2 weeks ago;

"If anyone has had to tune a piano for Ragtime music, the 6+,6- method, you
might have experienced that extraordinary secondary wave that looms up from
somewhere when you play block chords. It is actually quite intoxicating. I
have no idea of the physics that is going on here that produces this
phenomenon."

AF