[pianotech] 4ths 5ths

[tnrwim at aol.com]

Allow me to make one final comment on this thread. 

There are three different levels of tuners. There are those who tune aurally, but are not able to pass the tuning exam, which requires very aural basic tuning skills. These tuners are convinced that the tuning test is flawed, but are happy to tune at their level. They make enough money from their customers, and do not see need to try to improve their tuning skills. 

Then there are those tuners who use an ETD, and are satisfied with the results they get. They do not see a need to try to improve on it. They think the tuning exam is not necessary because they know, in their heart, that the ETD gives them the best tuning that can possibly be gotten out of the piano. Most of their customers are happy with their results, and they do not see the need to try to improve on their tuning skills.
 
And then there are those tuners who are able to listen to the results of an ETD, and not only can hear the minor flaws it produces, but can do something about it. These are the tuners who are willing to spend the extra time and effort to correct the minor flaws, and do the best tuning that instrument can produce, not necessarily because their customer demands it, but for their own satisfaction, which is why they became an RPT in the first place. 

Wim. 






-----Original Message-----
From: Paul T Williams <pwilliams4 at unlnotes.unl.edu>
To: pianotech <pianotech at ptg.org>
Sent: Wed, Feb 2, 2011 11:52 am
Subject: Re: [pianotech] 4ths 5ths


Susan, unfortunately, you're preaching to a wall.  Quit feeding the cat.  If you feed a stray cat, he'll come back again and again.  Please just call it quits with this guy.  You and he are never to agree, and that's that. Let's all just let this go and go back to our lives and tuning the way we see fit.  The eternal argument isn't just between you two (and a some on Wim), and keeps creeping up every 6 months or so and then we're all back to the "circle the wagons", here comes the enemy thing. 

The strange, but funny thing is, 99% of the home-owned piano people would ever know what method is better, can't hear the difference, or care:  Only the most professional pianists and other master musicians will be able to tell; AND, the beauty of the tuning is in the master of the hammer skills and ears to hear;  not the devices he/she uses to get it there.  Some aural tuners are awesome, some ETD tuners are awesome.  I will give you this, however, Susan;  You have to use your ears and intuition, period!  Merely looking at a machine will never make a great tuner. JMHO.  There again, another can of worms that must be used for fishing, not arguing. 

Nothing you, I, or anybody on this list is going to change the way Duiane or any other is going to do "their" thing.  It's too bad to not be open minded, but those with a barred door can not open it. 

Let's please drop this thing! 

Thank you. Still aural, with an occasional ETD helper... JUST TO HELP! 

Paul 





From: 
Susan Kline <skline at peak.org> 

To: 
pianotech at ptg.org 

Date: 
02/02/2011 11:54 AM 

Subject: 
Re: [pianotech] 4ths 5ths





On 2/1/2011 11:30 PM, Duaine Hechler wrote: 
You are being the most boisterous against ETD usage.


I'm being the most boisterous in favor of aural tuning. 

What you take as dissing ETDs in general are my attempts 
to explain why I (not anyone else, _I_) don't want to use 
one. 

My problem with you isn't that you use an ETD. It's that 
you seem to hate anyone who uses aural tuning instead of 
one. 

Also, I believe the many experts here, most of whom use 
ETDs every day, when they say it can't stand alone. 

Now, these ears of yours ... It's not a physical problem, 
obviously. It's a strain on your patience and concentration, 
because the beats are hard for you to hear. This happens to 
some people, especially when they are beginning. The trick 
is to find out WHERE (at what pitch) you should be 
listening for the beats. 

They are higher partials, not the fundamental. You obviously 
can hear them somewhat, or you couldn't tune unisons and 
octaves. 

If you set up an interval, and want to hear the beats, start 
with thirds in the middle register, which are going not too 
slow, not too fast. Mute off the two notes so each is a single 
string. Start tuning one of the notes, till you get a good, 
prominent beat. Some of the beats for major thirds are so 
prominent they practically knock your socks off! That should 
give you an idea of the pitch at which the beat is occurring. 
You can hum it. If I were there I could hum it at you. 
wow - wow - wow - wow etc. 

Once you figure out which pitch to listen at, the whole thing 
should ease up and not be such a big problem. You can gradually 
listen to faster beats and to slower ones. 

You have noticed that when you hear a fifth or a fourth, it 
has a curl to it? It's like a vowel sound. You can vocalize 
the vowel sound and then get it to go the speed you want as 
you tune the note. This kind of slow-beating interval is 
highly useful to evaluate how even your temperament is. It 
can be a vocal thing, like oooaaaawwwwuuuu. For unisons, also, 
vocalizing helps. You want to get long open vowels, like ah 
or oh, instead of eeeee or diphthongs, like eeeeyyaaaa. 

Don't worry about beats per second. Theoretically it's good 
information, but most of the determinations you need are relative 
instead of numerical. It's good to have a rhythmic memory of 
how fast the F-A at the start of the temperament sequence goes. 
Then one tunes the octave F, and fiddles the C# in between so 
that the three thirds progress. None of that takes counting 
against a stopwatch, or anything. And there are four notes of 
the scale in pretty good places. 

Heck, it's a start. Just master that and you should feel an 
awful lot more confidence and comfort. Listening for fourths 
should stop being an ordeal by the Inquisition. 


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