[pianotech] aural tuning

[Alan Eder]

Susan,

One place where in the past I have disliked ETD tunings is that I    hear a dip around octave five and six,
Agreed.  I tuned aurally for my first ten years.  Since then, I tap into the "best of both worlds."  Using the default programs for both RCT and SAT, I routinely raise the pitch on every note in the 5th octave "a bit" (determined by ear, then entered into the machine's memory).


Alan Eder


-----Original Message-----
From: Susan Kline <skline at peak.org>
To: pianotech <pianotech at ptg.org>
Sent: Wed, Jan 26, 2011 5:22 am
Subject: Re: [pianotech] aural tuning


              On 1/26/2011 9:49 AM, Les Koltvedt wrote:    
            
I started out using an        ETD, still do but am being mentored in aural.  I find the ETD        eases some of the stress of knowing which side I'm on and how        close, esp in the ext treble where you can get out of ear shot        very quickly.  Lately I've been checking the ext treble with        double octaves and octave and a fifth, see where that leaves me        on the ETD and adjust accordingly.   
        
 
        Les K
        LK Piano
        
        -----------------------------
    
    I like the sound of your approach, Les K. 
    
    If you are extremely close on a note, and can't tell in which    direction it needs to go, give it the smallest possible nudge to the    downside, as small a motion as you can manage, like just the tiniest    tic. Then you know which side it is on. 
    
    The extreme treble presents some problems. Jim Coleman, Sr. used to    give a very interesting demonstration in his convention tuning    classes. He would play a note in the middle of the piano and the    same note three octaves higher (with no tests) and have the class    decide where it should be tuned. When he filled in with the    intervening octaves, and measured it with a device, it was always    really sharp, like a quarter tone or more. And a roomful of piano    tuners had decided where to put it. 
    
    I'm not sure if he described it just like this, but it seems to me    that he was demonstrating melodic tuning versus harmonic tuning.    Melodic tuning always wants to be much higher than harmonic,    especially after long jumps. This can be seen by how high some    violinists play in the top octave. It's a different way of hearing.    
    
    Put this into context for concert work. A soloist is playing a    passage, which ends with a jump over two octaves to one shining    treble note, perfectly exposed. If someone has tuned the top end so    the octaves are beatless and the chords sound good, this single note    will invariably sound flat, and kind of skimpy and ungenerous. On    the other hand, if one puts it right where it wants to go for this    kind of playing, that note will sing with beauty, but if the pianist    plays chords or single octaves way up there, they will sound bitter    and ill at ease. 
    
    So, I think of tuning the top octave or octave and a half as calling    for "tempering", but in this case tempering between melodic and    harmonic tuning. One should also pay attention to what is being    performed, if one is lucky enough to get to a rehearsal, and see if    the particular stretch suits it. I recently went to a dress    rehearsal of a Shostakovich concerto, and found it crammed full of    exposed double octaves, which weren't sounding wonderful, because my    stretch was a little too great for them. I retuned so double octaves    were better than singles, and it sounded a lot better. Other pieces    would have sounded worse. 
    
    One place where in the past I have disliked ETD tunings is that I    hear a dip around octave five and six, and then the very top seems    to go sharp to compensate. I think that this was much more the case    with the less sophisticated machines, and today's probably do a far    better job. Still, the strain between the two kinds of listening    should be heeded, IMO. When all is well, one can play all the notes    with the same name, in successive octaves, and also in double and    triple octaves, and they all proclaim that they are REALLY the SAME    NOTE. If the octave stretch isn't quite right for that particular    instrument, they are just kind of the same note, more or less, as if    they were saying "what are you EXPECTING of us??" 
    
    YMMV, as they say .... "your mileage may vary" 
    
    Susan Kline 
    
  
 
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