Conservative Octaves & Tuning Exam

[Dean L. Reyburn, RPT]

Stephen R Haasch writes;
>
>The master tuners need to agree on the method of checks before they go in
>and evaluate the piano which they master tune.  I would be of opinion
>that this information should then be provided the candidate for the test
>when it is given.
>
Steve;
This is not really much to worry about in practice.  The PTG tuning exam
has a number of built in safe guards to make sure that a good tuner will
_not_ be penalized if he tunes well, uses any reasonable stretch, but
stretches differently than the recorded master tuning.

There are four safe guards built into the test: (& probably a few more
I haven't included here)

First of all the piano is tuned by a committee of three RPT tuners, one of
which must be a CTE (Certified Tuning Examiner) who has passed the tuning
exam aurally only with a score of 90% or better.  These three have to
come to a meeting of the minds on a tuning.  It is possible but highly
unlikely that they will all be super-stretch or super-conservative
tuners.

Second, even if the master tuning is stretched a little more or a little
less than the examine would tune it there is a built in tolerance of a
two cent window in the midrange, expanding to a 12 cent window (!) at the
highest and lowest octaves of the piano.  You can stretch a piano a lot
and still be within those parameters.  If your tuning is within that
window you will not only pass, you would get 100%!

Third, any errors which are initially computed against you must be
verified
aurally.  If they don't, those errors are thrown out.  Normally, if either
of the examiners fail to verify the error by ear, we throw the point out,
giving the examinee the benefit of the doubt.

Fourth, to pass the tuning exam as a Registered Piano Technician, you
don't
have to be a perfect tuner!  Only an 80% score is required in all
categories.
We don't expect perfect tunings, just tuning to a certain fairly objective
standard.  Examinees are understandably a little nervous, and this
sometimes
affects their scores, therefore the 80% requirement.  You don't have to do
as good of a job tuning as a committee of 3 tuner who spent 3-4 hours (or
more) tuning a piano.  Nobody can be expected to do that.

In conclusion; When taking the exam, tune fairly clean octaves with a
moderate stretch.  Don't stretch the highest octave much at all beyond
clean single octaves. Tune good equal temperament with smoothly
progressing
parallel intervals and chances are you will pass with flying colors!

Here's a tip for SAT users taking the test; an FAC tuning will usually
pass the test in the high 80% or 90% range if well laid on the piano. The
only problem area is the highest octave.  When you reach C7 subtract one
more cent each time you tune a white key until at C8 you will subtract 8
cents from the FAC C8 original reading.  That will usually pass with a
high score.

With Reyburn CyberTuner just click the "RPT Exam" radio button in the
Chameleon 2 window and RCT will usually pass at close to 100% in all
categories (if the tuning is faithfully transferred to the piano).

(Remember thog=ugh you still need to tune those midrange notes from
from C3 to B4 again aurally!)

I have yet to see a tuner fail the test because he or she over-stretched
or
under-stretched the piano.  In the past 6 years of working with the test I
only remember hearing about one instance of this happening out of hundreds
and hundreds of exams given by many different examiners.

Hope that helps!

-Dean