standards

[David M. Porritt]

Richard:

I think I understand what you're getting at here, but is this not
trying to fully objectify art (and I mean that as a sincere question,
as I don't really know)?

dave

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 5/12/2003 at 2:55 PM Richard West 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


_____________________________
David M. Porritt
dporritt@mail.smu.edu
Meadows School of the Arts
Southern Methodist University
Dallas, TX 75275
_____________________________