>>Jim- Your suggestion to combine the stability and unison part of the test is a good one, thus giving examiners a chance to see/hear if the person being tested can accurately tune unisons that will withstand a substantial test blow. I would suggest doing this in the entire treble break just above the agraffes where unisons just love to embarass a tuner. If you can tune unisons here that will sing real pretty throughout an all Liszt program, you're doin' just fine! Ken Sloane, Oberlin Conserrvatory<< If we are bemoaning the number of Tuning Exam failures, I don't think this suggestion is going to fix the problem. Quite the contrary. Also I fear that if stability and unison testing were moved to this more difficult proving ground, the frustration level for all involved in the exam would increase, due to the higher incidence of wild strings. I tend to agree with Jeffrey Hickey, that those who pass the exam are those who know (have control over) what they are doing, and those who fail, don't. If an examinee, who is trying to do an ET tuning, lacks enough control to come up with more than a marginal quality (sounding) tuning, and that tuning _passes_the_exam_, I don't think the exam is too strict. John Baird
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