Honky Tonk Tuning, "celeste"

[Dave Nereson]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "D.L. Bullock" <dlbullock@att.net>
To: "PTG" <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Wednesday, May 19, 2004 9:47 PM
Subject: Honky Tonk Tuning


> I have had customers call me after buying a new piano.  They said the
tuner
> from the piano store had just tuned it and he ruined the sound of the
piano.
> In the store it sounded just like Aunt Maudie's piano, but now it sounds
> dead.  I went and found a perfectly tuned spinet.  I tuned one string to
> celeste with the other two strings and the customer was ecstatically
happy.
> I collected my check and left with another happy customer.  Everytime
> thereafter, I would tune that piano straight and then celeste it, leaving
a
> loyal happy customer.
>
> Come on guys.  Well, Kernberger, Mean.  GET REAL.
>
> What you want for a so-called Honky Tonk tuning is a simple celeste
tuning.
 . . . . . .
> D.L. Bullock    St. Louis
> www.thepianoworld.com
>

    Yet a real celeste is a sort of mini-upright "piano" that has tone bars
like a "xylophone", rather than strings.   And each note is only one tone
bar -- there's no possibility for out-of-tune unisons because there ARE no
unisons.
    And really, since "xylo" is Greek for wood, a xylophone has wooden tone
bars, like the marimba, and what has traditionally been called a "xylophone"
is really a "metalophone," like the vibraphone, but more primitive and
without the resonating tubes and vibrato.  Some enlightened elementary
school music teachers make this distinction nowdays and label the
instruments accordingly.
    I don't understand the connection between "celeste" and "honky-tonk" or
why the meaning of 'celeste'  (Italian: celesta) would be different when
applied to organ stops.
    --David Nereson, RPT