The Great Tune-Off

[Dean L. Reyburn, RPT]

Bill Ballard RPT writes;

>What may we learn from this? In this test a jury of peers showed no clear
>choice for either acoustic or aural tuning. Presumably, unless Virgil
>restrained some of his more unconventional inclinations, his aural tuning
>should have been a good contrast to the more ordered electronic tuning.

Its easy to assume that a visual tuning device is not capable of widely
varied tuning styles.  That is not the case with Reyburn CyberTuner.  RCT
is  capable of a wide range of octave tuning styles including one which
matches Virgil's style very closely.  This is what Jim Coleman Sr. used.
RCT has 9 pre-programmed tuning styles, from #1 (very conservative squeaky
clean octaves) all the way  through number 9 (strongly beating but
consistent octaves).  Jim used style number 8.

In addition RCT has an "RPT Exam" style and a "Custom" style which can
easily be programmed using aural octave (and double ocatave) beat speeds
as parameters.

I have to confess that I studied aural tuning under Virgil back in the
late 1970's at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago and have taken his classes
over the years with great interest.  Maybe some of his theories rubbed off
on me! ;-)

I have taken Jim's aural and visual tuning classes for years, and it was a
real privilege and thrill to see Jim Coleman Sr. using my Reyburn
CyberTuner in such an event.

>But in all of this we have to keep in mind Jim's report that  he "tuned
>unisons by ear except in the treble." He continues, "My personal feeling
>is that during the listening we were concerned more with the unisons than
>anything else.  The slight difference in voicing, temperament or octaves
>may have influenced some, but with whatever the slight variations there
>were, the results were so close."
>
The differences in voicing did not play any part since Jim and Virgil
switched pianos between two sessions.  For the statisticians out there
here are the votes broken down between the two sessions;

                  First Session      Second Session

Jim Coleman Sr.        84                 222
Virgil Smith           70                 168
Undecided              42                  78

As you can  see, even though they switched pianos the preference (though
statistically small) followed Jim's tuning, not the piano.  There were
about 25 people at the first session and about 60 at the 2nd.  Each
vote should represent one person's vote on one piece played.

>Just what do we have? Does it really boil down to a jury with no clear
>preference in a choice between Jim's and Virgil's unisons, both of which
>were done aurally? Well, if both tunings are in somebody's SAT or RCT,
>then we've really got something to "analyze the bejeebers out of".
>(Correct me, is this the first time a Virgil tuning has been "captured"?)

I don't think anyone "captured" Virgil's tuning, maybe Jim can comment on
that. (I wish we had!)

The two tunings were of such high quality that it was difficult to choose
which was best, and many participants voted for one piano for this piece,
and the other for another piece.  The fact that the vote was so close, and
there were so many undecideds even with so many good ears tells the story.

-Dean

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 Dean L. Reyburn, RPT
 Cedar Springs, MI, USA                   web page:   www.reyburn.com
 1-888-SOFT-440                              email:  dean@reyburn.com