Accu-True or False

[Avery Todd]

>  I am not qualified to speak to accutuners, and the accuracy/consistency
>thereof, since I have only owned one since the Convention. But I can speak to
>your statement on unisions. I agree that perhaps the most important part of
>the tuning process is leaving good clear, stable unisions.  Most customers
>can not tell that the 17th partial of the third minor diminished fifth,
>augmented, is flat but they can certainly tell if the unisons are out and are
>sounding like a Warbler instead of a Lark. It has been my contention for many
>years that more reputations have been made by good unisions than by perfect
>temperaments.
>  Jim Bryant(FL)

Jim (& others),
   I agree with the above statements. Several times in my career I have
been put in a situation where I had to tune for a recital, etc. and because
of "forgetting to call the tuner" (or whatever reason), I only had about 30
minutes or so to do it. I have found, assuming a "decent" basic tuning,
that if you run through it very quickly checking for any bad octaves and
then spend most of the time on the unison tuning, you will rarely have any
complaints.
   Occasionally, here at the school, we have multiple recitals on a
Saturday or Sunday (I call them procrastination recitals because so many
wait until the last minute to sign up), and I will sometimes come in and
check the piano in the way mentioned above, especially if it's a piano
recital. We have had as many as 5-6 in one day, and of course, invariably
the last one is usually a piano recital!!
   Being able to handle situations like these is just another reason to
build up your speed while doing pitch raises, store tunings, any situation
where extreme accuracy is not critically important. Believe me, some day
you will be glad you did.

_____________________________________
Avery Todd, RPT
Moores School of Music
University of Houston
Houston, TX 77204-4893
713-743-3226
atodd@uh.edu
_____________________________________