Octave Tuning

[Andrew & Rebeca Anderson]

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On pianos with short strings in the bass the tuning is much more 
difficult.  On spinets the fundamental is weak to non-existant.  There is a 
mess of resonances that make picking out the useful harmonics difficult.  I 
have run into some nice little pianos, cleaner sound, but they have been 
the exception.

Andrew
At 08:23 AM 9/30/2004 -0600, you wrote:
>I must disagree with you on this point.  I tune every kind of piano and 
>bigger is not always better.  Infact sometimes the smaller ones that you 
>mention will just fall right in to place.  The beats can be heard in them 
>all, sometimes on larger pianos, especially in the bass there are so many 
>choices it is tough to know where to go.  I will agree that your concert 
>grands tend to get tuned more often so it is often a matter of just 
>tweeking them, but don't discount practising on pianos of lesser 
>quality.  I have one student that passed his PTG tuning exam aurally with 
>flying colors and I asked him how many quality pianos he had worked on 
>prior to taking the exam.  He said that he could count them on one 
>hand.  Most were older instruments in the far North of Canada.
>
>
>Chris Gregg RPT
>
>
>At 09:48 PM 9/29/2004, you wrote:
>>Matthew,
>>The easiest piano to tune is a concert grand 9' or more.  The hardest, 
>>one of the little wurli spinet monsters where the lid just clear the top 
>>of the sharps.
>>
>>Good luck finding an easy one. ;-)
>>
>>Andrew
>>
>>At 11:13 AM 9/29/2004 -0700, you wrote:
>>>Thanks for the replies.  I am practicing my tuning on a 1913 Hinze 
>>>upright.  Is that doing me more harm than good here?  I think it is hard 
>>>to hear lots of stuff on that piano, but then again, I am a beginner, so 
>>>I don't know if it's more the piano or more me not having trained ears 
>>>yet.  I know lots of families with much newer pianos, should I try to 
>>>hook up with one of them and maybe work it out with them to practice my 
>>>tuning on it?
>>>
>>>Matthew
>>>
>>>BobDavis88@aol.com wrote:
>>>Matthew writes:
>>>When I tune the temperament octave (A3-A4), it needs to be a 4:2 octave, 
>>>correct?
>>>
>>>No. Read the many replies which said that it should usually be wider 
>>>than that.
>>>And one way to test this octave is to play the A two octaves above the 
>>>lower note as the test key, to hear the partials in the octave, am I right?
>>>
>>>Not exactly, but read Don Rose's comments on ghosting.
>>>   If the octave you are testing has no beat whatsoever, you have a 
>>> perfect temperament octave, is this true?
>>>
>>>No. There is no such thing as a beatless octave. An octave which is not 
>>>beating at one level, such as 4:2, will be beating at all other 
>>>coincident partials, such as 2:1, 6:3, 8:4. The higher the beatless 
>>>coincident is in the chain, the wider the octave. A good compromise 
>>>octave is usually pretty quiet, though,
>>>
>>>Matthew,
>>>
>>>If you have kept this trail of posts on octave tuning, please go back 
>>>and re-read it, and the links to which you were referred, including the 
>>>ones to the AccuTuner manual Appendices F and H. People are happy to 
>>>spend time helping you, but you've got to do your homework and read the 
>>>replies. At the risk of repetition, I include, directly below, a copy of 
>>>my post from last week on this subject:
>>>Bob Davis
>>>-------------
>>>Matthew's original question was how to tune a 4:2 octave. Several 
>>>people, myself included, sent the tests, aural and visual. Whether that 
>>>[meaning 4:2] is appropriate for the temperament octave on a particular 
>>>piano is a second question. Tuning so that "the 10th is just noticeably 
>>>faster than the third" might produce a good width of octave, but it is 
>>>NOT a 4:2. [It's wider]
>>>
>>>A clean 4:2 octave IS wide at 2:1, and narrow at 6:3. Most aural tuners 
>>>naturally gravitate towards a temperament octave that is very slightly 
>>>wide of 4:2 ("the 10th is just noticeably faster than the third"), which 
>>>will be substantially wide of 2:1 and a tiny narrow of 6:3. This gives 
>>>an octave that is pretty clean-sounding, and produces fifths which are 
>>>pretty clean and fourths that aren't too trashy. Any octave size can be 
>>>divided into 12 equal half steps. A true 4:2 octave will produce cleaner 
>>>fourths and more movement in the fifths, and on most pianos will be 
>>>unnecessarily narow. However, on some pianos with high inharmonicity, a 
>>>wide temperament octave added to a clean octave below, will produce a 
>>>double octave that is too noisy. It's a balancing act.
>>>
>>>
>>>Do you Yahoo!?
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>>
>>  http://www.tuneit.ca

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