The question should be: is anything repeatable? There used to be a journal called The Journal of Irreproducible Results. It was well-thought- of by many good scientific minds, and served the purpose of disclosing a lot of hooey and truly laughable experimentation. So let's try to design an experiment. Piano X is tuned as precisely as possible by ETD at time A. Piano Y is tuned as precisely as possible aurally at time A. At any other time after time A, the question needs to be raised as to whether they're exactly the same piano as tuned either way at time A. I think it is arguable that both pianos become "different" due to structural shift during ambient and localized condition change. The "scaling" doesn't change, but the actual physical condition of the string segments changes (soundboards, bridges, bearing, crown, terminations, harmonic structure of each string). How measurable is it? It's actually measurable down to hundredths of a cent with the correctly calibrated tools. We have done this here at CSPT on some of the 7 master-tuned pianos that our students use to practice tuning, including the piano we use for the PTG tests. We wanted to make sure that the "master" on it was lasting adequately. It needed retuning and slight re-mastering, and, in my opinion, all test pianos should be subject to this kind of oversight. But this then begs a question: Piano X was tuned at time A with an ETD, and the numbers recorded. If, at time B, you then as precisely as possible re-tune that piano using the ETD, you will find variance with the original numbers dialed in at the time A tuning. So this begs the question, is the tuning done and recorded on the ETD "repeatable"? Within rather large ranges, it is close, since the structural shift changes in the piano aren't immense. But it won't be the same. It may be as nice, but it won't be the same. By the same token, piano Y, aurally tuned at time A, will have undergone its own changes. Re-tuning that piano at time B as precisely as possible will in fact tune the piano the best it can be tuned at time B, but it will be different, measurably, from the first tuning at time A. It won't be the same tuning. It can't be. It may be nice, but it won't be the same. In neither case is the original tuning "repeatable". It is a false premise from which to argue. In large, the use of ETD's to "repeat" tunings works within rather constrained limits and works well for large inventories of the same types of pianos, and as a substitute for those who suffer hearing loss in the high treble. To claim as its major advantage over aural tuning that fine tunings are repeatable from the numbers used in prior tunings is an unsupportable claim. I am really open to counter-arguments on this. As we develop data here at CSPT, in our research, it would be worthwhile to make it available. Paul -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20110127/73f09969/attachment.htm>
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC