[ExamPrep] Temperament (John Formsma)

[Michael Magness]

On 9/5/07, A440A at aol.com <A440A at aol.com> wrote:
>
> Holly writes:
>
> <<  I thought the point of tuning a temperament via 4ths and 5ths was to
>
> make it easier to get to the contiguous M3s as a finished product - ? >>
>
> Greetings,
>    I don't know if it is easier to "get" the thirds as a finished product,
> but we were taught to use 4ths and fifths with an ever-increasing number
> of
> checks as we went through the temperament.  These included comparing
> thirds and
> sixths, adjacent thirds, 7-8-9-10 progression of 3rd-6th-6th-3rd.
> Cumulative
> error was stopped very quickly by not going beyond any check that didn't
> work
> out.
>    The bias of either approach, ie, contiguous thirds vs. 4ths and fifths,
> favors either making a perfectly straight progression of thirds or totally
> consistant fifths.  On small pianos, it is often not possible to have
> both, and
> the tuner must decide which is more important.  In ET, the thirds are so
> out of
> tune to begin with, I don't remember a customer ever questioning them, but
> I
> have, on occasion, had a small scale that had a beating fifth when the
> thirds
> were lined up, and a customer picked it up.  I remember retuning the
> fifth,
> letting the third beat 'out of order' and they were satisfied.
>       I believe the perfect progression of thirds is something that we
> tuners pay far more attention to than the majority of pianists.
> Regards,
>
>
>
> Ed Foote RPT
> http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html
> www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html
> <BR><BR><BR>**************************************<BR> Get a sneak peek of
> the all-new AOL at http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour</HTML>
>



Hi Holly,

I learned like you and Rex to tune with a C fork F3 toF4 using 4ths and 5ths
after about 12 years and a few complaints from
professionals I did "concert" tunings for, I went to one of the senior men
in the area, sorry Holly all men in my area at the time, to see if he could
help. He converted me to an A fork with a new tuning method, his concert
tuning method, as follows.
A3 to the fork checking the beat rate against an untuned F2(it doesn't
matter if it's tuned, you are simply listening for the same beat rate from
the 2 piano notes as the F2 to the fork). Tune F3 to A3, D4 to A3, A#3 to
F3, F#3 to A#3, B3 to F#3, E4 to B3, G3 to B3, C4 to G3, G#3 to C4, C#4 to
G#3, D#4 to A#3, F4 to C4. Checks can be made at any time with Maj. 6ths,
5ths. When completed the progression of beats can be checked with Maj 3rds
and again more carefully with Minor 3rds.

As you can see this method uses 3rds and 4ths to tune with 5ths and 6ths for
checks and it is adjustable to fit the various scalings on some of the PSO's
I won't name here that won't accept this tuning in it's true form. Just as
Ed said in his post, you sometimes have to give up the smooth progression of
3rds or allow a 5th to beat slightly, trim the beat on that 4th a little
slower than normal or leave it a little fast, remember most of the time the
only one that can hear these things is you. I have found if I can tune the
piano to my satisfaction(knowing I left a little something just that little
bit off, for the sake of making the piano as a whole sound OK)my customer is
satisfied. If you bring the problem to their attention, a tuning problem
they would probably never have noticed, you are doing yourself a disservice.
Most production pianos have tuning flaws, our job is to fix the glaring
ones,  those that can be fixed and smooth over the rest making them not as
noticable.

Having used this method for over 25 years now I find I can set an aural
temperament with it in about 10 to 15 minutes. I am going over the tuning
exam source book now and will be practice tuning a piano at our next meeting
in about 2 weeks. Our chapter doesn't have a test examiner certified for the
new testing criteria but a few that qualified under the old criteria who
should be able to render an opinion to give me an idea if I need to modify
what I do or if I can do well with what I've been doing for the last 25+
years of my 38 years in this business.

Mike
-- 

Never become so much of an expert that you stop gaining expertise. View life
as a continuous learning experience.

- *Denis Waitley <http://www.quoteopia.com/famous.php?quotesby=deniswaitley>
*


Michael Magness
Magness Piano Service
608-786-4404
www.IFixPianos.com <http://www.ifixpianos.com/>
email mike at ifixpianos.com
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