[CAUT] descriptive tuning (was FAC)

[Alan McCoy]

Great statements Fred. Easy to get lost in the minutia and forget about the
forest.

Not being a pianist I have always enjoyed (and often gently insisted on)
talking with the pianist about what they want (touch and tone wise). I love
this process and it has helped me a bunch over the years.

I tend on larger instruments to use the 12th partial for low bass tuning,
which is a good deal wider than a 6:3. I like a growl. Speaking of
descriptive language, Newton taught a tuning class long ago and talked of
the "power point" in bass tuning. This power point is where I aim for. This
is the same point on the wave that a surfer (or in my case a body surfer)
catches. Lots of movement without quite breaking. I want movement in my
octaves, without the wave breaking. Unisons on the other hand I want dead
on. I'll get vitality from octaves any day over unisons. Of course while
this applies especially to concert work, when you go for the musical edge,
you are also going to the edge of stability and the tuning won't be as
"durable." But for concert work, who cares whether the tuning lasts 3 days
when all you are after is the most musical tuning you can get for that
concert. 

I remember listening to Ron Conors' tuning in Carnegie Hall. Very active
4ths in the midrange, with correspondingly smooth 5ths. It was an eye opener
for me at the time (1992).

The other thing not mentioned explicitly here is the venue, or room size. To
me larger venues beg for wider intervals. We all go to 1000s of concerts.
What do we hear? Voice problems, duplex and capo noises, unisons and pitch
comparisons from bottom to top and with other orchestral instruments. Beat
rates are the last thing I worry about.

Alan


-- Alan McCoy, RPT
Eastern Washington University
amccoy at mail.ewu.edu
509-359-4627




> From: Fred Sturm <fssturm at unm.edu>
> Reply-To: "College and University Technicians <caut at ptg.org>" <caut at ptg.org>
> Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 11:42:31 -0700
> To: "College and University Technicians <caut at ptg.org>" <caut at ptg.org>
> Subject: Re: [CAUT] descriptive tuning (was FAC)
> 
> Hi Richard,
> In general, the mid range and bass in my tuning style is not much
> different from most (best I am able to figure), especially on concert
> grands. The bass has a very low inharmonicity, so it is easy to
> synchronize the mid range to it. My bass style is essentially
> "somewhat wide" 6:3 8ves, which translates often, on larger
> instruments, to beatless or somewhat wide 8:4. My 5ths approach
> beatless, my 4ths are a bit "dirtier" than theory would call for.
> Octaves sound "on the verge of beating," kind of like unisons that
> are purposely tuned not quite beatless to liven up a dead note.
> There's enough partial coupling that no actual beat occurs.
> How much faster is G3B4 compared to G3B3? About 1 bps. Does that
> mean that B3B4 beats at 1 bps? No. There is enough coupling of the
> 4:2 and 6:3 partials that there isn't a perceptible, regular beat. It
> sounds "a bit dirtier" than it could. Or you could describe it as
> "more live." "Dead on" octaves sound rather dead, to my ear.
> In the higher treble, I expand at a gradually increasing rate,
> lining up my notes with what is below. I typically have a compromise
> between beatless 19ths and triple octaves, a little wider on concert
> instruments. This makes the single octave, especially octaves 6 and
> 7, have an audible beat of gradually increasing rate. At the top of
> the piano, C7C8, this can be quite fast. My ear isn't acute enough to
> count those beats reliably.
> (The compromises happen mostly with smaller instruments, with
> relatively large inharmonic breaks. You really notice those breaks
> when focusing on triple octave versus double octave. I just allow a
> break to occur (from, say, beatless triple octaves to quite narrow
> ones), and "follow the mathematical curve" (use the machine's
> numbers, or, if I'm altering them, alter them about the same amount)
> until the extra high inharmonicity eases a little higher in the
> scale. When I tuned entirely aurally, it drove me nuts trying to make
> things work out. Going from the concert D to the Hamilton was a real
> exercise in frustration. Knowing the pattern I'm working against, I
> just go with the flow).
> Laws of physics don't necessarily coincide with laws of psychology
> and perception. The Greeks made their temple columns curved so that
> they would look straight. The question here is "What is the musician
> listening to?" Is it pureness of octave, or perception of pitch?
> Granted, at some point one will war enough with the other so that
> there isn't a good compromise. This is often the case with smaller
> pianos. There is simply no good middle ground. But I tend, with those
> smaller pianos, to continue to favor the wider intervals. Yes, the
> octaves in isolation sound worse, but I think the piano sounds
> better. The key is consistency - if all octaves sound "the same" (in
> a very gradual curve), and nothing stands out, the ear will accept it.
> And I think that, musically, we listen more to wider intervals
> anyway. Pianists play with both hands, often fairly far apart. We are
> constantly hearing triple octaves with the single and double mixed in
> between (just play octaves in both hands, C2C3 with left, C4C5 with
> right. Fill in chord notes. That's a fairly narrow musical position
> for a pianist. C2C3 with the left and C5C6 with the right is also a
> common spacing, reaching a quadruple octave). The sense of the top
> versus the bottom of that large chord is more important than the
> single octaves included within it, in that musical context. Plain,
> unadorned, sustained octaves occur very, very seldom in music.
> I find that, listening in the audience, I NEVER notice the sound of
> the beats in those single high octaves, though I can hear them quite
> clearly while tuning. I hear unisons that are getting a bit iffy, but
> that's it. What I hear more is relative pitch from bottom to top of
> the piano. Does my top treble sound sharp? Not to my ear. If
> anything, it sounds a bit flat (psychologically/perceptually/musically).
> If our ears can accept ET M3s, they can accept almost anything <G>.
> I have never had a complaint that I stretched too much. I have
> occasionally had the opposite complaint over the years and I have
> responded to it.
> I would love to see some robust research in this area, using
> musicians and music lovers. I think we tend to listen to each other
> too much, and don't ask enough questions of the people we work for.
> Regards,
> Fred Sturm
> University of New Mexico
> fssturm at unm.edu
> 
> 
> 
> On Jan 23, 2007, at 8:46 AM, rwest1 at unl.edu wrote:
> 
>> Fred:
>> 
>> I agree, but can you characterize/describe how the individual
>> octaves turn out when you choose to emphasize the wider intervals?
>> How do the 2:1 octaves beat in the tenor and upper midrange in
>> order for you to get the expansion you want in the higher octaves?
>> Are your fifths in the midrange pure?  Wider than pure?  How much
>> faster are the tenths when compared with the thirds?
>> 
>> I guess I'm saying that you can't have it both ways, and I'm
>> interested in how you would describe what your compromises and
>> tuning choices do to the octaves in the middle of the piano.  For
>> example, let's take the B4.  I assume that you like to hear the G3-
>> B4 tenth beating faster than the G3-B3 third.  How much faster, one
>> beat, two, more?  Would the G3-B4 tenth beat at the same speed as
>> the A3-C#4 third?  How fast will you allow fourths to beat just
>> above the temperament?
>> 
>> For arguments sake let's assume this is a concert grand.  I think
>> we'd agree that compromises would be different in an upright or
>> small grand.  Since concert grands are the instruments that provide
>> the best opportunity to match our theoretical ideas with a real
>> world instrument, I'd like to get your practical description for
>> concert grand octaves.
>> 
>> The reason this topic has been of interest to me for years is
>> this:  We technicians claim that the "artistry" of tuning is a
>> matter of personal choice.  Some people choose wider octaves than
>> others.  On some level I agree.  But I also believe that the degree
>> of choice is a lot narrower than has been described to me over the
>> years.  In other words a good concert tuning doesn't have as much
>> lattitude for choosing as we've come to believe.  Continuing to
>> promote this long held belief creates confusion, IMHO.  After all,
>> there are certain laws of physics at work here.  We wouldn't want
>> to violate the laws of physics.
>> 
>> 
>> Richard West
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Jan 23, 2007, at 8:48 AM, Fred Sturm wrote:
>> 
>>> On Jan 22, 2007, at 4:31 PM, Porritt, David wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Fred:
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> I no longer have an SAT.  I¹ve found TuneLab to be easier to
>>>> measure as it¹s semi-automatic.  It needs 4 notes I use 6.  It
>>>> does a good job.  Still, I tune from F3 ­ C8 checking things
>>>> along the way.  When I tune from E3 ­ A0 I turn off TuneLab when
>>>> I get to the wrapped strings.  I¹m much more interested in smooth
>>>> octaves than compliance to a particular octave size (6:3, 8:4
>>>> whatever) or smooth progression of beat rates.  It also helps
>>>> battery life!
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> dave
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> David M. Porritt
>>>> 
>>>> dporritt at smu.edu
>>> Hi Dave,
>>> I still have my SAT as backup, but use RCT. It fits my
>>> personality better <g>.
>>> As to octaves, I think we tend to give too much emphasis to the
>>> sound of the individual octave, rather than focusing on the sound
>>> of the whole piano. I find that emphasizing wider intervals, like
>>> 12ths, 19ths, and double/triple octaves, gives an overall sound I
>>> prefer. The individual octaves are sized to fit within the larger
>>> intervals.
>>> Regards,
>>> Fred Sturm
>>> University of New Mexico
>>> fssturm at unm.edu
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>