<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">To be fare, in some areas of the country, normally rural areas, the piano tunings are few and far between.<div>I had someone say to me, "my piano is still perfectly in tune". I didn't recognize him. I said how long ago did I do it, and he told me 15 years before. I tend to think that piano would need a pitch raise, and probably wasn't in perfect tune.</div><div>How many times have you been called for a sticky note, to be told you may as well tune it as well.</div><div>A lot of people can't tell the difference between a good tuning and a bad one. That includes piano teachers as well.</div><div>Once the kids are finished lessons, a lot of people see no need to tune the piano.</div><div>I always kind of wondered about aural pitch raises as well. You tune your temperament octave, pitch raising it, when you finish that octave, hasn't it dropped, say 20% just giving it a number? Now you use that octave to tune the next octave, basing it on the octave you just tuned, which has dropped. When you get to the last octave, wouldn't it be lower than the temperament octave you started with?</div><div>When you pitch raise with an ETD you are using for a reference that does not change octave to octave, unless you tell it to, so the last octave will be changed based on the same reference.</div><div>Oh by the way, I never call people to tell them it is time for their annual or bi-annual tuning. I wait for them to call me, and I am never out of work.</div><div>I also discourage tuning through the Summer, when the humidity can change 20-30% in a month.</div><div>I tell them to wait till the heat is on.</div><div>If it is a special occasion , concert etc., of course I will tune it.</div><div>I encourage installation of a D/C system for those pianos that are used year round.</div><div>Different strokes for different folks.</div><div>John Ross</div><div>Windsor, Nova Scotia<br><div><div>On 10-05-2012, at 4:16 PM, Paul Williams wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div>Gee, Duaine, if nearly all of your tunings are that out of tune, I'm<br>guessing you don't have many repeat customers. Is this correct? Where do<br>they go? Might this be a clue? Are they all pitch raises EVERY time you<br>visit? Interesting....<br><br>Paul<br><br><br>On 5/10/12 2:02 PM, "Duaine Hechler" <<a href="mailto:dahechler@att.net">dahechler@att.net</a>> wrote:<br><br><blockquote type="cite">Not to deliberately belabor this point, but answer me this;<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">99.9% of my tunings involve MAJOR pitch raises. With aural tuning ONLY,<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">how in the "sam hill" can you do a MAJOR pitch<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">raise in less than 2 hours.<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Now let's see - that involves setting the temperament, PRESUMABLY, at the<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">same time, calculating stretch, tuning each<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">note, tuning the unisons, etc Oh, yeah, do your "precious" aural tuning<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">checks, but, wait, the piano is constantly<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">moving because it was so out-of-tune, but some how you are still supposed<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">to do them, how I will never know. Starting<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">from the middle, tune up and tune down AND with the piano still moving<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">along the way. So now you some sort of BASE<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">tuning, so now you have to go back and "tweak" BUT, again, the piano is<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">still moving, so you have to, maybe, tweak again<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">and again and again, etc. Have I forgotten anything ?<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Now, with an ETD (like, Cybertuner (because that is what I have)), you<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">capture the "starting" point of the piano with<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">all the A's; IT calculates the proper pitch of the note where it is<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">supposed to be - factoring in, automajically, the<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">stretch and you tune from note 1 to note 88. Now, do some MINOR checking,<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">which you MIGHT need to make some MINOR<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">tweaking. And, now you are DONE.<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Stepping back out of your CURRENT life and as a NEW tech coming into the<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">business, you would pick the ETD route. So did<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">I, like millions of other techs.<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">So there - "put that in you pipe and smoke it"<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Duaine<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">On 05/10/2012 07:57 AM, David Renaud wrote:<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">I did not at all suggest I had an engineering degree, I have a music<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">degree.<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">I was addressing the comment previously made by someone else suggesting<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">that having to take today's tuning Test was<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">like asking to take an engineering exam with only a slide rule and<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">pencil.<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">My hope was to point out that the apology is not good because:<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">1)Indeed, you actually can use technology for large parts of the tuning<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">exam.<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">2) The aural part is primary to demonstrate that a candidate actually<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">does know some aural test.<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">In this interest, The margins of error are very larg, and this part is<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">not to produce a concert level tuning at all,<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">but a minimal standard. Most of the people I have seen fail this part<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">knew practically no aural checks tests<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">whatsoever. Forget executing tests well ,the problem was so many do not<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">have the information at all. It is a test of<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">demonstrating a minimal knowledge of aural tests.<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">3) the exam process does have a written part before qualifying to take<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">the tuning exam. As you suggest should be, is<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">indeed, Questions Regarding partial, harmonics, and stretch are part of<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">the written exam.<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"> So my point was only that the analogy with the slide rule is not<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">valid. And my discussion was intended to point<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">out that a fair comparison would be an exam where the candidate would be<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">Expected at some point in the exam to demonstrate some minimal manual<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">mental calculations and knowledge without<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">referring to the computer/devise. In my opinion the aural component<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">of the tuning tests does this minimal<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">demonstration of aural testing knowledge for it has generous margins of<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">error, and anyone with basic knowledge and<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">practice of a 3 or 4 Interval tests can achieve passing at the 80%<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">level. The problem I have seen so often in the exam<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">room with the aural part is mostly lack of knowledge of any aural<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">tests. It is indeed a demonstration of a minimal<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">standard, not concert tuning.<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"> I have mentored enough experienced tuners through assimilating<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">basic aural skills to have an opinion. ALL of them<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">say it opened up a whole new world to them. All of them appreciated and<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">valued the added techniques. You do know that<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">none of the examiners get remuneration for the<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">Hundreds of hours they have spent training for and being in the exam<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">room? To give that much<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">Free time you have to have a spirit that really desires to give back.<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">These people want others to succeed, and have<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">put their time and money behind their words giving thousands of dollars<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">worth of time because they do care. One CTE I<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">respect very much asked me once."if we will not preserve Something of<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">the aural tradition, who will? "<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"> There is value there. There are people that care and give<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">there. The aural part<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">Deserves respect.<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"> Cheers<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"> Dave Renaud<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">-- <br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Duaine Hechler<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Piano, Player Piano, Pump Organ<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Tuning, Servicing& Rebuilding<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Reed Organ Society Member<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Florissant, MO 63034<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">(314) 838-5587<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><a href="mailto:dahechler@att.net">dahechler@att.net</a><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><a href="http://www.hechlerpianoandorgan.com">www.hechlerpianoandorgan.com</a><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">--<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Home& Business user of Linux - 11 years<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><br><br></div></blockquote></div><br></div></body></html>