etds and ears

[John Formsma]

John,

I'm assuming you mean a pitch "raise."

I haven't done any personal studies on it, but I accept the fact that one
will get a more accurate and stable pitch raise by tuning unisons as he
goes, from the bottom up.  I think Dr. Sanderson proved this many years ago,
and my time with the Verituner confirmed this to me.

As a strictly aural tuner now, though, I don't have a choice except to tune
from the middle outward, unless it's a "blind" pitch raise, which I
personally never got the hang of. The way you get the right overpull is to
do pitch raises enough that you know sort of what to expect. It becomes less
of a guessing game and more of a "feel" thing. You could think of it as
knowing how many beats sharp to tune it. As you learn through experience,
you will find certain types of pianos behaving more predictably. I generally
set A4 1/3 more than it is flat; e.g., if it's -10¢, I'll set it to +3¢.

I use strip mutes in the whole piano, "Dan Levitan style." It takes about 15
minutes for a pitch raise. It is generally not as accurate as an ETD, but I
have had occasions that many strings were as close as an ETD could get in a
first-pass pitch raise.

There is probably lots of stuff in the archives. Good luck searching for it!

JF

I would like to know from Fenton and from others how
> they manage a pitch range aurally.  I've often thought of going completely
> to
> aural tuning but am worried about how exactly to estimate overpull, and
> make
> it as efficient and close as my SAT does in one pass when in pitch range
> mode.
> I've also heard that it's a preferred method to go from bottom to top,
> unisons as you go, when raising/correcting pitch.  I'd love to hear aural
> tuners' takes on this.  (Understand I'm sincerely curious and NOT
> challenging
> anybody)
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