etd's and ears

[Fenton Murray]

Hey Dave, Hey David,
I've long ago given up thinking that ETD's are in any way inferior. After 30
years I can still say I have never owned one, as a matter of fact I don't
think I have spent more that an hour with one. As for the school tunings,
etc. I can go on auto pilot with my ears. I can day dream about anything I
want (opps) and churn out a tuning in 30 minutes. Or, I can spend 2 hours
dissecting every interval up and down the keyboard, spending time locating
10-5 and 12-6 octaves in the bass. I can go as far as I want, or rip through
a temperment and octave up and down with 4th and 5th checks, then a quick
chromatic 10ths and double octaves, maybe octave 5th in the treble, this
stuff goes lighting fast if I want it to. I think an ETD would just slow me
down. I just can't see how a ETD could make something like school tunings
easier. If I were to start using one, it would probably be to enable me to
tune a piano better, in a critical situation, but I really have no
experience with them so I can't say. I would think that they are simply
another tool that can be used to improve one work if one is skilled in their
usage. I can't see myself getting one though, I'm having too much fun
enjoying tuning as an art, I'm still learning. And, I don't think my clients
would like it.
Fenton
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Love" <davidlovepianos at comcast.net>
To: "'Pianotech List'" <pianotech at ptg.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2007 2:57 PM
Subject: RE: etd's and ears


> I think I understand what David Anderson was saying and to some degree I
> think he's right.  Assuming we are not talking about institutional tuning
or
> other situations where the effort/reward ratio dips too low to concern
> ourselves with 100% outcomes and where the ETD calculated tuning is an
> appropriate use, if we're comparing aural tuning to a pure calculated
> tuning, by definition, the aural tuning is more "artistic", it requires
> judgment, the calculated tuning doesn't, at least not once the programming
> is done.  Arguing which is "better" is not something I want to get into
but
> I will say that they are clearly different.  A calculated tuning will
almost
> certainly be better than a tuning by a non-skilled aural tuner.  However,
a
> skilled aural tuner will more consistently compensate for anomalies in the
> piano that the ETD can't really make decisions about.  I say this as
someone
> who uses an ETD though more and more I use it only for direct interval
> tuning, i.e. it's set to the coincident partial in question and I don't
> bother to calculate anything and I check everything, I mean everything,
> aurally as I go.   Of the thirty years I've been doing this I spent
probably
> 20 tuning aurally and the last 10 using a device.  I've gone through
several
> different ones never really being that satisfied with any of them for
> calculated tunings.  Some claim greater prowess than others.  I can say
that
> the complaints I have received about tuning (at least the ones I knew
about)
> were always associated with calculated tunings in which I did not tune
with
> aural checks.  I even lost a couple of regular customers during a period
in
> which I was experimenting with calculated tunings on a "state of the art"
> machine.  They thought my tuning skills had deteriorated and
(interestingly)
> associated it with the change to using an ETD (so much for the theory that
> people only hear solid unisons).  I gave up using the ETD for unchecked
> tuning after that.  Since then I have gone back to using the ETD to
> basically set the temperament-it's simply faster and overall more accurate
> for that, and then I go to direct interval tuning and tune like I always
did
> going out from the temperament--bass first.  By doing that I can
compensate
> for areas in the piano that do not fall into the way the ETD would
calculate
> the tuning curve, there are always those areas, and more accurately choose
> where in the piano to switch (or fudge) octave styles. In general, I find
> that I do not stretch the tuning nearly as much as ETD's tend to.  My C88
> tends to come in about 25 - 28 cents sharp whereas a calculated tuning
would
> likely come in somewhere around 40 cents.  Bass tunings tend to be less
> stretched as well.  My own style of tuning, I find, leaves the piano with
a
> greater sense of sonority, i.e. unity and swell.  Those customers for whom
> I've done AB comparisons tend to agree.
>
> Unfortunately, I've come to the conclusion that the piano is simply too
> irregular an instrument in terms of how it produces harmonics to hope for
a
> calculated tuning that is really spot on through the entire scale, though
on
> certain pianos it can get close.  The best choice, in my view, is to use a
> combination as the ETD does some things very well:
>
> 1.  Serves well as a means of visual verification or as a guide which can
be
> verified aurally
> 2.  Provides stress reduction and speed on poor quality pianos or
> institutional pianos
> 3.  Fast and accurate for temperament set up (all types)
> 4.  Good for tuning the extremes especially when pitch recognition is
> compromised
> 5.  Performs quick and accurate pitch corrections
>
> Beyond that, the devil is in the details and the art of tuning lies in
> judgments made in areas or across sections of the piano that defy
> calculation.  In that sense, I think David Anderson has a point.
>
> David Love
> davidlovepianos at comcast.net
> www.davidlovepianos.com
>
>
>
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