Hi Richard, I must disagree about "taste". I have a client who prefers 2:1 octaves...in the entire bass end of her piano. It is how she hears it as "correct". She is an excellent professional saxophone player who hears very well indeed. I have to be "very" precise to tune her piano in this "theoretically wrong" manner. If one were to take a "taste free" alternative then the old acceptable "precise" tuning would be one where as many partials as possible "lined up" i.e. a 4:2, 6:3, 8:4 would all be "beat free". Its pretty well known that for example FAC numbers change with the seasons and moisture content of the piano parts. This would imply that the "perfect" tuning in January would be wrong in August. Voicing does also affect the relative strengths of the partials so simple "hard" playing will (eventually) change the nature of such a "perfect" tuning. Some persons have even claimed that the frequence of the partials is physically changed due to voicing. My understand is that with the current "state of the art" that it is impossible to satisfy the demands require the definition of "equal temperament". I believe that the best you will manage is very broad guidelines, which is about where we are right now. These have been codefied in various Journal articles. For example the f3 to f4 octave would be likely to be an expanded 4:2 or a contracted 6:3 on most instruments. How expanded you ask? Well adjusted by the "taste" of the tuner or desire of the owner (my real life example above). At 02:55 PM 5/12/2003 -0500, you wrote: >Phil & All, > >Phil Bondi wrote: > >"In my opinion, the larger and better scaled the piano, the more options you have for stretching and narrowing, depending on taste" > >This is an interesting statement and gets at the heart of what I'm trying to explore. First of all it's my belief that the better the piano, the more clearly the physics of the scaling comes through and hence the more clearly the piano itself dictates what it wants. "Taste" has very little to do with it, in my opinion. With the sophisticated aural checks, and ETD's available to professional piano technicians, it seems to me that it should be possible to define a standard for concert grand tuning that minimizes resorting to "taste". > >My arguement against using customer or even technicians' "taste" as a criteria is that it's so vague. I think it opens the door for imprecision. If I ask whether a person tunes pure 5ths in the center of the piano, that seems to me to be a fairly precise parameter and it has consequences when tuning the upper and lower extremes of the piano. If I ask whether a person likes the 3rds, 10ths, and 17ths to increase in speed by an amount equal to the difference between similar temperament thirds, then that seems like a precise way of describing how the 3rd, 10th and 17th compare. Unfortunately most technicians say they have to get faster, and leave it at that, end of description. > >Using just those basic tools above, takes the tuning to the last octave and 1/2. If I ask whether a person tunes the last octave and 1/2 using pure 4:1 double octaves, that again is fairly precise, especially if one uses an ETD set to match the double octave below. Tuning the double octave with a treble stretch as descrbed above, seems to me to be the widest stretch that a piano can accomodate and be consistently tuned. There simply are no good checks for the last 1/2 octave 7 other that 17ths and double octaves. Checks that rely on triple octaves and arpeggios don't seem to me to be as accurate and therefore make the top octaves inconsistent. In addition tuning octave 7 as pure double octaves to the notes below octave 7, enhances the singing area of the piano because the notes in octaves 4 & 5 are supported by sympathetic strings in octave 7. > >In terms of satisfying customers' "taste" what is that? If a person doesn't tune professionally, what real criteria are there for "taste?" Without an accurate description of a set of tuning criteria, what is taste but guesswork. Using "taste" as a criterion opens pandoras box to untrained ears who, like untrained artists, can say, "I don't know anything about art, but I know what I like." Or there will be technicians who develop their own "standard" in the vacuum of no standard. > >What a person does with smaller grands, spinets and consoles is one thing (we all know there are often big compromises that have to be made), but concert grands announce how they want to be tuned. At least that's my thesis here and I'm trying to find out if I'm a lone wolf on this, or whether we can really determine a more clearly defined concert grand tuning that doesn't rely on "taste." > > >Richard West > > >_______________________________________________ >caut list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives > > Regards, Don Rose, B.Mus., A.M.U.S., A.MUS., R.P.T. mailto:pianotuna@accesscomm.ca http://us.geocities.com/drpt1948/ 3004 Grant Rd. REGINA, SK S4S 5G7 306-352-3620 or 1-888-29t-uner
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