Tuning Testing Standards

[fred s sturm]

On Thu, 18 Feb 1999, Jim Coleman, Sr. wrote:

> Hi Ken:
> 
> Thanks for your comments and especially your emphasis on stability. Our
> Tuning test does give a fairly tight scoring on stability.
> 
> I would prefer to change the stability test to cover only the 5th octave
> to save time and have this combined with unisons. This is the killer
> area where unisons most often go out, not in the 3rd and 4th octaves. I
> have mentioned this in our committee. It was then felt that we should not
> make too many changes at once. Perhaps next year would be more appropriate.
> This would shorten the test and we would not have a score for stability
> as such, but it would be reflected in how the unisons stay. I feel that
> this would be a more practical test for stability and unisons. It doesn't
> make any difference how well a person can tune a unison if it does not
> stay.
> 
> Jim Coleman, Sr.
> 
> 
This is certainly in line with my thinking on the subject. One of the
problems
with the stability test is that it is done after testing the tuning of the
strings, so depending on the training of the examiners, the pitch could
have changed already due to somewhat heavy blows while reading and
testing. Also, stability is achieved in real world tuning while tuning the
unison, at least the way I tune. It is a somewhat artificial circumstance
doing the tuning test and tuning only the middle string - one tends to try
to nudge things that extra bit, which often leads to instability problems.
Combining unisons and stability is a natural, and octave 5 makes a lot
more sense than 3 and 4, as long as false beats aren't too much of an
issue in the exam piano.
	Another area I would like to see looked at is the high treble. Why
do we specify a way of tuning octave 7 that nobody I know uses? Why not
specify clean double octaves instead? It would be much closer to most
people's natural tendencies, and has an objective test (3rd/17th, not that
this is easy to hear, but certainly no harder than 10th/17th at this pitch
level). In setting up an exam piano tuning, this is always the most
problematic area in my experience. It is somewhat easier to hear the
clarity of clean double octaves than clean single octaves.
	As for relaxing multipliers for the temperament, I think that
makes sense as long as it isn't relaxed too much. 2.0 instead of 2.5?

Fred Sturm, RPT
University of New Mexico