for those on the fence about hearing protection..

[Diane Hofstetter]

It's good this topic has come up.  It's one we have collectively been taught and now collectively need to objectively examine. 

 I taught a class in hearing protection and did hearing tests at a piano tuning school last fall.  
Part of the class included measuring how loud they were tuning.  When I asked the instructor to demonstrate tuning blows,  he asked "should I do it like I teach them, or like they DO?"   I said "both".  So he proceeded to tune, using an average blow of 95dB.  Then he demonstrated his students' blows.  They measured 85dB.

Afterwards, when I tested the students' hearing individually, they confessed to me that it hurt their ears to tune as loud as the instructor wanted them to.

So I started wondering whether it is actually necessary to use extremely loud test blows, or whether it is PTG folklore?

How many of us have actually done objective studies?  Now we have ETD's we have the ability to measure our results down to thousandths of a cent.  We can go back immediately after a tuning. the next day, the next week, and measure whether it is holding or not.   

In the 1990's my husband, who had previously been involved in quality control, devised a graph and we started measuring every tuning on the piano before we tuned it.  This allowed us to have a picture of the results of our previous tunings.  It gave us information on the seasonal tuning changes--helped sell Damppchasers.   It helped us selll pitch raises.  It gave information on the changes in pitch in the conference center concert instruments so we knew what time to tune to have the piano at pitch.  It gave us information on our tuning stability.

When I went back to school, more than full time to study hearing, I stopped tuning for a year and a half.  One day I opened a little used dresser drawer, and gasped!  It was filled with devices I used to use to try to stop the pain in my left fingers, wrist, arm, shoulder..........

The worst part is that those pianos I hurt myself on three years ago are no longer in tune, but I have residual pain.

Diane




for those on the fence about hearing protection..
Ron Nossaman rnossaman at cox.net <

> Sorry I don't use a "trusty etd" I instead use my "trusty god given
> ears" and I haven't experienced what you describe.
>
> Mike

I tune aurally, and I sure have, which is why I let up on the
pounding.
Ron N


Diane Hofstetter