Tuning Testing Standards

[Kenneth Sloane]

        Reply to:   RE>Tuning Testing Standards

Thanks, Jim, for taking the lead in this matter. For a long time, I have been skeptical of our "anal" approach to evaluating a prospective member's tuning skills. Though the standardized test was a big move forward in making PTG's tuning evaluation as objective as possible, I don't think it focuses strongly enough on the essence of a good tuner -- i.e. a reasonable temperament, tight unisons, octaves that are appropriate for the piano, and STABILITY. 

Thanks again, Jim. This thread should be a good one.     Ken Sloane, Oberlin Conservatory
--------------------------------------
Date: 2/16/99 10.27 PM
To: Kenneth Sloane
From: caut@ptg.org
I thought there may be some who would be interested in the latest Tuneoff.

At the California State Conference Feb 12-14, I taught a class on Advanced
Tuning. At the beginning of each class I presented two identical pianos
which had just been tuned in different temperaments. One was just a standard
SAT FAC tuning which incidentally is a very good tuning on a Yamaha C3. The
other tuning was the Moore 18th Century Well Temperament which had some
notes tuned 2.5 and 3.0 cents off from equal temperament.

After playing identical selections on the two pianos, I asked the class
which piano they thought was the one with the "funny" tuning (actually, I
used the words Moore Well tempered tuning). In the Friday class, the voting
was fairly even. 54% thought the FAC tuning was the Well Tempered Tuning and
only 46% guessed correctly. In the Sunday afternoon class, 80% thought that
the FAC Tuning was the Well Tempered Tuning. I next asked which piano they
liked best as far as tuning was concerned. It was almost unanimously decided
in favor of the Well Tempered Tuning. All of the voting was done without the
audience really knowing which piano had which tuning.

I asked for a show of hands as to how many in the audience were musicians.
My estimate was at about 95%. I confessed my ulterior motive for doing 
this kind of demonstration. In 1977 Dr. Sanderson and I were asked by then 
President Don Morton to develop a standardized Tuning test for the Guild.
We adjusted our scoring procedures so that 80% of the then RTT members would
pass at the 80% score. Being a perfectionist as I am in some areas, I began
pushing for tighter scoring in the Temperament area. We later adopted a
multiplier system such that the total error points would be multiplied by
2.5 and then subtracted from 100% to give the final Temperament Score.
We have used this tighter scoring procedure for almost 20 years now. The
question in my mind is: "Have we tightened our scoring to satisfy the
elitests? Are we now just 'gilding the Lily'? If an audience of piano
technicians who are also musicians cannot tell the difference between
equal temperament and a mild historical temperament, are we on an ego trip?
Are we setting standards to protect our little clique? Are our standards set
to protect the public from shoddy work? Which is it?"

I asked for a show of hands in the advanced tuning class for those who think
we have elevated our temperament standards too high. The voting was almost
unanimous. I mentioned that I had talked to some very well respected tuners
who also agreed with me that we are guilding the lily. I do believe that
we should keep the 1 cent tolerance for scoring the points in the mid-range
and temperament section, but that we should relax the conversion
multipliers. I further believe that we should add some questions in our
written test to include various test intervals to be used in making
decisions as to whether an interval is too wide or too narrow. With 
this covered in the written test, we can save time during the tuning test 
scoring by eliminating much of the hesitancy on the part of the examinee in
aurally verifying his penalty points. I do still believe that Equal
Temperament should be our testing standard, but that we have just
made it more difficult for associate members to upgrade because of our
arbitrarily tightened standards.

This is the third year in which I have conducted this type of test in my
classes. The results have been even more demonstrative in other classes. At
the Arizona Conference this year and at the Calif. State Conf. last year,
almost the entire audience guessed wrong when asked to identify the piano
which had the Well temperament.

My question to this group is: Do you feel that our temperament standards
are a little too high? I would like some feedback. I am not promoting
Historical or hysterical tunings. In all of the classes where I have done
this type of test, it was conceded that both tunings were good tunings.

Have I opened a "can or worms" or what?

Jim Coleman, Sr.


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Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 16:44:35 -0700 (MST)
From: "Jim Coleman, Sr." <pianotoo@IMAP2.ASU.EDU>
Subject: Tuning Testing Standards
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