Dear Jeff;
Thanks for some very thoughtful comments. You have raised some questions
on a subject on which I have been working for a number of years, namely
the variation of tuning styles between aural tuners.
I wrote;
><<from #1 (very conservative squeaky clean octaves) all the way through
>number 9 (strongly beating but consistent octaves).>>
>
Jeffrey T. Hickey, RPT wrote;
> As an aural tuner, I almost invariably find that the machine tunings
>I've heard stretch the high octaves far more than my ear is comfortable with.
>Is this simply a tuning preference on my part? Am I too conservative in my
>opinion of octave tuning?
I think this is probably a tuning preference on your part; sounds as if
you are probably a moderately conservative tuner, but how much to stretch
the octave is very subjective.
Over the past few years I have listened to, and measured quite a number of
tunings around the country while giving or demonstrating the PTG tuning
exam.
The amount of octave stretch varies by quite a large amount, and there is
little agreement among tuners on how much to stretch.
For example, at the Dearborn (Michigan USA) Piano Technicians Guild
Convention in July '96 I was among 3 tuners given the task of preparing a
piano for the PTG tuning exam. We had to do a "master tuning" on the
piano
and record that tuning (the examinee would be scored against that tuning
-
an 80% score is required to pass as and RPT). The piano was a Yamaha C3,
a good piano, and for starters I used Reyburn CyberTuner's Chameleon 2
program to calculate a tuning for it. I used the tuning style #4, a
middle of the road, moderately conservative style which (IMHO) sounds
very nice on Yamaha grands. Here are the parameters for the two octave
temperament which were used by the program;
Octave A3 to A4, widen to 0.33 hertz at the 4:2 octave (M3rd-M10th test)
Octave A2 to A3, widen to 0.33 hertz at the 6:3 octave (m3rd-6th test)
This resulted in a double octave from A2 to A4 of 0.7 hertz wide (at the
4:1, M3rd-17th test).
After laying this tuning on the piano (using RCT of course ;-) I asked the
other two tuners to check my work and verify that the piano was at a good
starting place to refine aurally into a master tuning. Both these tuners
are fine aural tuners having both passed the tuning exam _aurally_ at 90%
or better in all categories.
The first one checked my tuning and said that my octaves were even, but
stretched too much for him. The second said the opposite, that my octaves
were way too conservative, that I should stretch them much more!
We ended up comprimsing on (approximately) my tuning style.
So there you have it in a microcosm, three tuners with widely varying
tuning
styles.
Is this variation in octave tuning style a result of different schools or
tuning teachers teaching different techniques? Is it a difference in the
hearing or perception between tuners? I don't know for sure, but probably
all of the above and some more thrown in. Some tuners (including myself)
change tuning style depending on the type of piano or concert versus home
piano situation.
I think some very good tuners do this without realizing it, or wouldn't
describe it in the same terms as I do.
> I find that nearly "squeaky" octaves, across the
>entire piano, give the most pleasing and powerful tuning. I will 'bend' lower
>octaves, slightly and audibly flat, far more readily than I will seek to put
>sharp-side beats in the high octaves. My thinking (...training, preference,
>experience, ...or just my opinion, ok?) is that in the lower octaves; the
>co-incident partials will run increasingly sharp as you ascend the overtone
>scale and stretching the bass toward the flat-side actually helps increase
>the co-incident possibilities with the octaves above the low note
That is a well stated tuning preference, and describes how I tune most
pianos
also. But there are many tuners who disagree with "squeaky clean"
octaves.
When I wrote my first tuning calculation program back in 1991-92
(Chameleon 1)
I had 3 beta testers (guinea pigs) to test the program's tunings. It was
the
Goldilocks and the Three Bears story all over; one said more stretch, one
said less, and one said just right! It was then I decided to give the
tuner
as much control over the sound of the final tuning as possible. No one
octave stretch factor pleases all tuners.
>(...possible and pleasing to my ear only because the fundamental or first
>partial is relatively and increasingly weak in the low bass strings... or am
>I just speculating here? Hmmm.).
>
In the lowest octave of most pianos the fundamental is almost completely
missing. Even in the 2nd octave the fundamental is one of the weaker
partials.
My RCT program has a built in piano spectrum analyzer ("Pianalyzer") which
shows this.
>
> Is it just my opinion that matching the octaves (as far as possible)
>help to reinforce the power and ( ....hmmm... what would Braid-White or
>Helmholtz say?.... ah!...just the word!...) sonority of the piano? The
>concept that the coincident partials, vibrating on the differing strings,
>are actually helping each other can be experienced by 'ghosting' notes...
>as many tuners do to hear difficult partials. Doesn't over-stretching the
>octaves, to audible beats, lower the transfer of energy? Couldn't this
>actually lead to negative reinforcement or cancellation possibilities
> between the partials (reducing sustain)?
>
It is a matter of degree, depends on how far you take it. According to
Virgil Smith a piano can be tuned so that all the octaves, single, double,
triple and quad are in alignment. Dr. Smith doesn't say it this way, but
I think what he is doing is matching the higher octave partials at the
expense of the lower octave partials. This makes the triple (and even
quad) octave line up better at the expense of the double and single
octave,
depending again on how far you take it.
> I've had "picky" ears request some 'color' in the top octave... but this
>doesn't usually require more than one or two beats per second in the octave
>(...more of a leaning toward the high end of true than the "smoothly beating"
>you describe),
By smoothly beating octaves I mean that the octaves in any section of the
piano would beat about the same as the parallel octave around them. Any
change from section to section should be gradual.
The highest octave of the piano is where there is the least agreement
among
the tuners it seems. Some tune to the single octave, some to the double,
some to the triple. Some use the octave-fifth, double-octave-fifth or
combinations of several of the above intervals.
> while unisons remain as clear and clean as possible. I've
>never had complaints from orchestra or other performance venues, from artists
>to college choirs or piano teachers to piano dealerships with this 'tuning
>style'... and I'm curious about how you view the topic.
>
Note that I do not personally endorse this method of beating octaves, I
only
note that many fine tuners use it with results which are pleasing to many.
I am a fairly conservative tuner, and don't like beats in the middle
octave of my own piano. Pianists notice solid unisons (or the lack
thereof!)
before they notice anything relating to octaves or temperament in my
experience.
> Where do you believe such 'colorful' octaves belong? Specific pianos?
>Sizes? Styles of music? Or simply a preference of customer/clients and
>individual tuners? Certainly, there are as many styles of tuning as there
>are tuners... but what's your view? Is the beating you describe a way of
>adding personality or individuality to a tuning, to please the ear or excite
>the music performed? Should Beethoven be heavy and 'clean', while Romantic
>performances should have more "Life"? Curious, I am.
>
All of the above?? It sure would be a boring world if everyone tuned
pianos
the same way, and they all sounded the same! I'm even a little
uncomfortable
sometimes with the limitiation of 10 tuning styles built into my current
RCT program. (Well it does have a custom style with 4 parameters for
advanced
users) In the future I hope to give the user a finer direct control over
each octave of the piano.
Once the tuner gets to the point where the octaves beating noticeable, I
think the next step is to move away from equal temperament to some sort of
well temperament. Indeed some would argue that octaves which beat at one
hertz in the mid-section are not equal temperament anyway.
> You have opened an interesting topic, sir. Got an opinion? As the
>British gentleman might say; "I ask merely for information." Perhaps we need
>a multiple tuning "World Series" to truly test the flexibilities of the
>machines & aural tuners, eh? Hope to hear from you soon.
>
Sounds like great fun to me!
>ps-
> Has your invention (The Reyburn Cyber-Tuner) made it across the Big
>Puddle? Wouldn't adding your ideas to the British Tuning Competition add a
>new flavour to the proceedings? (...flavor, flavour, flavoure.. whatever!) I
>hear UPS can reach 'em PDQ, why not exercise the possibilities? :>)
>jef
>
Reyburn CyberTuner has one user in Norway, but as it was released in July
1996 I haven't had time to do much outside North America. I've heard from
several sources that tuning machines in general are much less accepted in
Europe than they are in the USA. Could some European tuners comment on
whether this perception is accurate, and why or why not?
-Dean
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dean L. Reyburn, RPT
Cedar Springs, Michigan, USA web page: www.reyburn.com
1-888-SOFT-440 (616-696-0500) email: dean@reyburn.com
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