---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment Tinnitus: Can't help ya. American School: Pretty sparce teaching, you are really on your own quite a bit. Reblitz is an excellent overview of a lot of stuff but, again, to learn aural tuning just from reading its pages would be very tough. Problem: You are going to get discouraged being the Lone Ranger. Solutions: Get thee to thy nearest PTG chapter and start absorbing information and advice from real, live warm bodies (there are a few, I believe, in each chapter). Where do you live? We'll tell you where to go (we're good at that <G>). You need to hear tuning, not just read about it. 4ths & 5ths vs. 6ths & 3rds: Now there's a question! Really you will use them all, the question is which do you tune with and which do you check your tuning with. There is much debate. 5ths have such a slow beat that they are hard for most to tune accurately, as a primary interval, Braid-White notwithstanding. 4ths can be very useful but the choice of interval width is, again, a source of debate. In any octave, you can place a center note (D or E in an A octave, for example) with some latitude and still have an acceptable 4th and an acceptable 5th. Is it the ideal place for that note in that particular piano? For that matter, the exact width of that octave is a bit of an artistic choice, too. Hope this isn't confusing. But, but, but ... in a successful equal temperament tuning, 3rds, 6ths, (and therefore 10ths, 17ths) must progress in beat rate as you go up the scale and, except for really obnoxious scaling problems--usually at the tenor/bass break--that progression should be smooth, even. Many find the faster beating intervals easier to hear, i.e., to judge the speed thereof, and tune with them while checking 4ths and 5ths. Others use fourths a lot and some (Virgil Smith for one) use minor thirds, too! Some temperaments (Defebaugh, for one) require good estimations of 7, 8, and 9 bps--which comes easy to some, hard for others. All temperaments that I've seen do require a decent estimate of the 7bps between F3 and A3, though some are designed to test and adjust that interval as you go along. Some temperaments (Coleman, I think) use some 4ths, some 3rds and 6ths. The real key is a good foundation: The so-called "ladder of thirds" or chain of contiguous intervals, e.g., F3/A3-A3/C#4-C#4/F4-F4/A4 can be an excellent tool (Sanderson, Potter, Peter Clark temperaments, among others). Bad news/good news: They're all important, but you may not be able to have perfect running 3rds and 6ths AND perfect, even 4ths & 5ths in many pianos. But here are some absolutes (kind of): Your octaves must be clean and perceptively beat-free--never more than 1 beat in 2 seconds. Your double octaves should sound clean but will, in most cases—on any but the biggest pianos—be rolling at about 2 bps. Your 5ths must sound clean everywhere on the piano (false beats notwithstanding). In the center, your 5ths may have as much as 1/2 bps roll but in the bass and treble they should be very nearly perfect, beatless intervals. 4ths generally beat at about 1 bps but can tolerably be a little faster--not by mistake, but by design--if you know what you are doing and why. Well-placed thirds and sixths will beat at different speads in different pianos, one size does not fit all. The important thing with these is even progression, as mentioned above. Unisons must be dead-on clean, as sweet and clear as the piano will allow. If you can tune clean unisons, beatless octaves and clean 5ths, you will please most piano owners even if your temperament is not optimum. Finally: Do not get discouraged, it is a challenging skill. You will progress--especially if you get some mentoring/tutoring--and, after a while, you'll wonder why you ever had a problem with things that now seem so natural. Promise. Get active in the Guild--attend meetings and classes at regional conferences and the annual convention. Do this as much as you can afford, time and money-wise. You will be profited. Promise. A good argument can be made for getting an electronic tuning device, an ETD (NOT a centering tuner like guitarists use and not a strobe, etc., but something with one of these names on it: Acutuner, Cybertuner, Tunelab--something specifically made for piano tuning and used by professional tuners). These can be very helpful in learning aural tuning--though the danger is that you will abandon your ears in favor of the winking, blinking lights and become an ETD cripple like so many of us did. They make it much easier and faster to get out into the money-making world but don't be satisfied with only half-learning tuning, says I. Hope it helps. Alan Barnard Salem, Missouri ----- Original Message ----- From: John Delmore To: pianotech@ptg.org Sent: 08/11/2005 11:50:59 AM Subject: newbie questions Hi all: First post, hope I’m doing it right! I’ve recently embarked on tuning/tech for a couple of reasons: 1) possible second career (don’t want to cut into anyone’s business, but all the tuners around here seem to be, shall we say, “advanced”), and 2) someone gave me an old Cable Euphona—maybe I can get her going in 15 or 20 years! Anyway, as all newbies, I have a “couple” of questions. First, I’m learning through the American School of Piano Tuning’s correspondence course. Also wearing out the Reblitz. Is there any consensus on “fourths and fifths” vs “sixths and thirds”? Pro’s and Con’s? Second, I have slight tinnitus—it’s always seemed to make me extra-sensitive to any instrument that’s out of tune (pretty bad for an Episcopalian bass who usually gets seated right in front of the ORGAN PIPES!). I was in band all through school, played guitar for years, piano for about thirty years, so I have tuned a thing or two. Other people will say something is in tune, but it grates on my nerves! Any other tuners out there afflicted (blessed?) with this? Thank ahead for any input! John Delmore ---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/79/b7/4b/08/attachment.htm ---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment--
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