<html> John, No cosmic answers to your questions, but here's some more "chord tuning" fun: for temp area: play, for example, your F-A 3rd, followed by your Bb-D 3rd. Standard check, right? Then, play the two thirds, followed by the F-D 6th.  Now, play 'em all. F-A-Bb-D. Compare the two thirds to the 6th. Sounds cool. play, for example, your F-C 5th. Now... play F-C-F chord. Alternate between that and an F-Bb-F chord. Hear the  balance? Now... do that with both hands, over two or more octaves. When that flips your switch, try a sequence that goes like: F-Bb-F-Bb-F  to F-C-F-C-F     to F-C#-F-C#-F     dah-dah-dah.... smoothly and quick. Just a few fun sounds that I use for consistancy, 'cause I know what they should sound like. Good luck figuring out what you're really listening to. Just waiting for the student recital to finish, so I can log in a least two hours off this week. Guy At 04:10 PM 4/18/99 -0500, you wrote: <blockquote type=cite cite>Greetings List, Last night I was tuning my mother's 1= 922 Bechstein grand for practice, and noticed something while doing the M3-M10 test to check octaves up from the temp octave. While I can hear if the M10 beats faster or slower than the M3, when all three are played together, there is a much slower beat that can be heard besides the faster third/tenth beats. This can be "tuned out" so that no slower beats are heard while all three are played together. Since I am basically a beginner in aura= l tuning, is this useful for anything? For an example, if you are tuning E5 to E4, checking for equal beats with C4, play all three together. If all are in tune, there will be no audible beats other than the third/tenth beats, which will be rather fast. Otherwise, if C4-E5 beats a little faster/slower than C4-E4, there will be a slow beat when C4-E4-E5 are played together. I realize this shows only that the E4= -E5 octave is in tune, which can be accomplished by playing the M3 and M10 separately. But are the three notes played together useful as a test, or do I merely qualify now to be called Mr. MOTO (Master of the Obvious)? <grin> John Formsma P.S. I have been scratching around on= a piece of paper, wondering which partials would cause the slow beat. Is it the 5th partial of C4, the 4th partial of E4, and the 2nd partial of E5? Just curious... </blockquote> </html>