[pianotech] "Repeatable" tuning

[Susan Kline]

On 1/27/2011 7:05 PM, PAULREVENKOJONES at aol.com wrote:

Hi, Paul

Two responses: First, I read:
> It won't be the same tuning. It can't be. It may be nice, but it won't 
> be the same.
And I felt like saying, "Do the words 'close enough to make no never 
mind' mean anything to you?" Then I read:
> 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.
And that went down pretty well for me. What I think we need to do is 
define what exactly we are expecting to repeat. Can we tune a piano 
aurally over and over again and convince a machine that it is EXACTLY 
THE SAME, to a tenth of a cent for each note? Of course not.

In a concert hall, if I look out and see many large and small varieties 
of oscilloscopes occupying the chairs, I'll need that adult drink.

But if one asks, "can a repeat tuning give the same musical experience 
as before, if played by the same person?" I think that the answer is 
yes, within any reasonable limit. The pianist won't be exactly the same 
as he or she was before, either. The hall won't be the same, and maybe 
the audience has all come down with bronchitis. But the tuning can still 
be recognizably the same tuning, within the capacity of a bright 
musician to tell. If someone was making a recording on the piano, with a 
lapse of time between between two recording sessions, and one tuned it 
for both, being careful to get the initial A to match the fork very 
well, the engineers could cut between tracks from the two days without 
any difficulty. I think this could be said to be repeatable enough for 
any useful purpose.
> 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.

I'm wondering why this question of EXACT repeatability (with such a 
strong accent on the "EXACT") is of importance to so many people here? 
Is it even a virtue? Does it do anything for us which needs doing?

Susan Kline

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20110127/b6948a9b/attachment.htm>