A lot has been said about aurally pure octaves, but no matter how one produces them, they are worth only so much by themselves. A few thoughts: 1) There is, especially in the octave 5 & 6 area, a window of a cent or so above and below a centerpoint, in which the octave sounds "beatless," just a little different in color, as the upper partials begin to break away, but before there is the heavier sensation of a beat lower in the partial coincidence ladder. It is easy to have the upper note too low and be fooled into thinking it is clean enough to leave alone, but there is a point at the top of that window where the octave starts to sound a little silvery, and that works better with the necessary stretch than the same point below zero, even though they sound about the same, and even though a beat isn't apparent. 2) The cleanest octave might not be the best. I have heard tuners, Virgil Smith among them, claim that they tune "beatless" octaves, double octaves, and triple octaves. The octaves etc. were nice enough, but they certainly weren't beatless, or even at maximum cleanliness, to my ear. I don't think the laws of piano physics permit it. On most pianos, a triple octave at the point of least noise will force the single and double to be above the point of least noise; even slightly above the "beatless-but-silvery" point. I know that's not news to most tuners, but all the talk of beatlessness merits a reminder. The nature of the inevitable compromise varies with the pianist, the piano, and the venue, and is where the art lies. 3) Especially in shorter pianos, or pianos with uneven voicing, a "clean" point can be hard or impossible to find in the bass. Here's where the ability to isolate partials individually can be helpful. Because different partials may be prominent on adjacent notes, tuning to the quietest place in the octave can cause uneven double octaves, even to the point of an objectionable beat. It makes sense to follow the beating at an individual partial (for instance, the 10:5 coincidence, which is fast enough to compare easily). Keeping track of evenness of progression (as at least one input) can help split the error musically, and prevent too much irregularity in double and triple 8ves, which may be more audible than a not-perfectly-clean single 8ve (I suppose you could just voice out the offending partial). 4) Every note is a member of many intervals, and an improvement in one interval always comes at the expense of another. Treble or bass, I think that intellect complements intuition, although I agree that we are all different, and it doesn't matter how you get there - it sounds great or it doesn't. Bob Davis **************Need a job? Find employment help in your area. (http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=employment_agencies&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000005) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20090315/68a1e3d5/attachment.html>
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