[pianotech] "Repeatable" tuning

[PAULREVENKOJONES at aol.com]

Interesting. I was responding to Duaine's use of the word.
 
Paul
 
 
In a message dated 1/27/2011 11:33:20 P.M. Central Standard Time,  
davidlovepianos at comcast.net writes:

 
I  think the issue regarding repeatability as Ed Foote originally mentioned 
was  probably meant with recording sessions in mind, which I believe he 
does a fair  amount of.  With things like cutting in when producing a master  
recording, duplicating the tuning exactly can be pretty essential and can be  
much more difficult to do aurally then from a memorized tuning.    
 
David  Love 
www.davidlovepianos.com
 
 
From:  pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On 
Behalf Of  Susan Kline
Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2011 9:00  PM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [pianotech]  "Repeatable" tuning

On 1/27/2011 7:05 PM, _PAULREVENKOJONES at aol.com_ 
(mailto: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

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