The shadow knows

[Ron Nossaman]

Tuning a "new" university sale Yamaha GC1 Disklavier 
(naturally) this morning, sitting there in direct sunlight 
(naturally) in a new house (naturally), I (oddly) noticed 
something. Since I was stuck in the sun, I got to watching the 
string shadows as I pulled the unisons in. I could see the 
difference as they came in tune with one another. The first 
two strings were just generally fuzzy and dim, then darkened 
and sharpened as they phased together. Cool! The third string 
was dim and fuzzy, without bothering the other two, then 
sharpened and darkened as it came in tune. One string out of 
tune to the other two also pulsed visibly with the beat. Way 
cool! This worked best around octave four, but that may just 
be because that's where I could see it best.

I know, I'm easy, but hey! I need *something* to entertain 
myself with when I'm tuning, and I don't often get shadows 
that intense. I ended the tuning in a much better mood than I 
started.
Ron N