tuning

[Elwood Doss]

You de man, John!  Great post!
Joy!
Elwood

Elwood Doss, Jr., M.M.E., RPT
Piano Technician/Technical Director
Department of Music
145 Fine Arts Building
The University of Tennessee at Martin
Martin, TN  38238
731/881-1852
FAX: 731/881-7415
HOME: 731/587-5700

-----Original Message-----
From: John M. Formsma [mailto:john at formsmapiano.com] 
Sent: Friday, August 04, 2006 9:29 PM
To: ilvey at sbcglobal.net; 'Pianotech List'
Subject: RE: tuning


>I suggest strictly aural tuners at least consider working with a ETD
>occasionally to "see" what they are missing...
>
>Because of the recent price increases, I am going to have to do with my
old
>flamesuit...so be nice
>
>David Ilvedson, RPT

[John Formsma] 
Yeah, been there, done that. It works, and yields acceptable to
excellent
results in most cases. There are some pianos which certain ETDs just
don't
do well. I've used the SAT II and the Verituner, and I don't have
experience
with RCT, which is probably as good or better since it measures within a
wider range before it calculates its tuning curve.

Now, lemme tell you 'bout some fun I had yesterday. It was a Wurlitzer
console that just is (was, now) a bear to get a decent tuning from.
(It's
the scale that has 5-6 wound bichords in the low tenor, with the first
trichord being F#3.) In January I spent 3 hours on it because I was
working
with the Verituner trying to determine if I would sell it. I tried this
and
that, modifying things, changing octave styles, etc. Nothing worked
well.
The VT and traditional aural tuning theory put the F3-A3 3rd around 7
bps.
That made the 5ths slightly wide around F3 (not beating noticeably) and
pure
at F4. That made things worse going out of the temperament. It was just
not
sounding very good. Finally, I decided to just use the temperament that
the
VT had done and tune it by ear - the heck with it.

Well, yesterday, I was determined to put my thinking cap on and figure
out
how to get this thing done...at least better. Began with a 2 octave
temperament to get the proper beat speed of the contigous 3rds within
the
two octave temperament. Now the F3-A3 third is around 5 bps. Everything
starts to fall right into place. Ahhh...this is looking better. Things
went
great up to the treble, but in the bass some of the fifths were beating
1
bps. OK, I can live with that - much, much better than double octaves at
2
bps.  Overall, the tuning sounded the best it had in the 7 years I've
been
doing it.

Time for reality check. I know it's likely nobody will ever tell the
difference from this tuning versus the last 14. But it's still nice to
know
you can figure it out using principles that have been established by
years
of hard-working, dedicated aural tuners. It does a ton for the
confidence of
this fella who had become unconfident after the recent use of a
Verituner.
Feels really nice. 

Thanks to all you folks who have passed down aural principles through
the
Journal and mentoring. You have made my job so much easier by putting
into
writing how to do it.

JF