I think one of the problems with ETD's is that users are generally working towards an outside standard instead of their own standard. Developing a sense of what is an appropriate level of resolution and accuracy is one of the most important skills a piano technician has. There is danger in piano work to spend too much time on activities that will be unnoticeable to the pianist and too miss the obvious. My hunch is that most, if not all, high-level voicers have strong aural tuning skills. In my first 10 years of tuning, I focused too much on getting a perfect tuning. I would sometimes spend 1/2 hour just trying to get a perfect temperament. This left me with very limited time for voicing, regulating, cleaning, lubricating etc. These days tuning has fallen down a notch on my list of priorities. I still do the best tuning I can within the time constraints that I allow myself, but I don't sacrifice time that should be spent improving other things that will matter more to the owner than a super-duper-accurate tuning to the 10th of a cent. "Do you want a carpenter that uses a measuring tape or one that eyeballs everything?" This carpenter analogy is silly. A more apt analogy is "do you want to pay a carpenter $75 an hour if he's using a micrometer to measure everything?" Plus, we are not building a house here. We are more like "cleaning the windows". The other limitation of ETDs is that piano tone is so complex that the display doesn't always give a clear readout. In exam situations I have seen readings vary by as much as a cent by simply moving the machine from one side of the piano to the other. Additionally the pitch of a single string can rise and fall. A skilled aural tuner is in a better position to make judgments about where the sweet spot is. Now, like David Andersen, I have nothing but respect for some of the "hybrid tuners" who augment their ears with the ETD but can deliver a solid concert tuning aurally when the need arises. However, I would argue that these are a very small minority of ETD users. The vast majority of tuners these days are WAY over dependent on the ETD for tuning work. And once a technician starts to get busy, it becomes very difficult to slow down and pick up the skill later. Some manage to do it, and they are to be commended. But most don't. If we don't practice and promote aural tuning skills, how is the next generation of tuners going to find the inspiration to pick up this important skill which is at the heart of our craft? How can a tuner ever develop their own sense of style and stretch if they haven't done the long tedious work. This has been a great discussion. I think it should be an ongoing discussion. I worry about the day we stop arguing over these things! Ryan On Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 5:48 AM, Ed Foote <a440a at aol.com> wrote: > Wim writes: > > >> There is nothing wrong with using an > > ETD. I use one every day, as do most RPT's. But until you actually > > know how to tune aurally, which you admit you don't know how to do, > > you will NEVER know how much better an aural tuning is. You might be > > satisfied with an ETD tuning, but that doesn't mean it's better than > > an aural tuning. > > > Whoa! there are some pretty strong suppositions here. Using a machine, after 16 years of aural-only studio work, made me a better tuner. > > How much better is the aural tuning than the ETD? The vast > > majority of aural tunings I have seen have been inferior to an ETD's, (at least, on the better pianos). What does the > > aural tuner do when correcting a 3 cent flat piano? Can we, aurally, make that .7 cent correction as we go? I think not. What of > > the piano that has varying degrees of off pitch? Can the ear compensate on the way through the scale? I think not. > > And I don't believe that the ear is more consistent than the microchip,either, so repeat tunings, in critical applications, > > are better served by the machine. > > How is the aural tuning going to compete with the recorded and stored tuning that has > > been used and tweaked numerous times in a process of refinement that is unavailable anywhere else? There is no cumulative > > refinement available with the strictly aural tuning, we have to reinvent the whole thing everytime. However, the machines can > > feed us back that last tuning we did on that Bramyoungway piano, allowing us to critique it each time we use it, making corrections > > until there is nothing less than what we consider ideal. Every aural tuning will be a little different, which one is better? > > There may be some aural tuners that can surpass the ETD on full size pianos, but I haven't seen one in a long time, and submit that they are > > the exception to the rule. At the root is how accurately can we measure? Do you want a carpenter that uses > > a measuring tape or one that eyeballs everything? > > Regards, > > Ed Foote RPT > > -- Ryan Sowers, RPT Puget Sound Chapter Olympia, WA www.pianova.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20110127/a2972f3b/attachment-0001.htm>
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