Dear Jim (FL): I know what you mean about paranoia. I used to be a very self confident tuner who knew what he was doing aurally. That blue box has made me very insecure. My friend Raye McCall used to say to me: "Jim, you have absolutely no right to feel insecure. Now stop it." Like you, when I first received my SOT and later SAT, I continue to be amazed at the times my "box shows me up." Eventually, I quit trying to improve machine tunings and tried harder to use the machine to its fullest extent. After a little more research, I plan to write a series of articles on how to use alternate stretch numbers to purposely vary the amount of stretch in the scale to improve the overall sound of a piano. At the present time I am trying to encourage more people to tune the treble unisons with the machine. There is tremendous improvement and stability available. The only drawback is that moving the mutes is a little more time consuming. Jim Coleman, Sr. On Mon, 4 Nov 1996 JIMRPT@aol.com wrote: > Dr. Jim C.; > "The concern about machine unisons being inferior to aural unisons is just > not borne out in my experience." > The concern that I was expressing was that a good, solid, aural unision > might be scored low because the machine said it was not solid. Your > explanation has resolved that concern. > As a, to paraphrase R. Carr, recovering aural tuner I am delving into Dr. > Al's blue box and am finding it fascinating. It is disturbing how many times > I am losing arguments with it. The darned just sits there stoically and > stares at me with those damnable red eyes and says nothing, but I know that > somewhere inside it is laughing at me. At those times I need to remind myself > that just because I am paranoid it doesn't mean that the blue box demons are > not out to get me. > Jim Bryant (FL) >
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