single vs. three string unisons (long)

[William Maxim]

Fred:

You wrote October 24:

>Date:	Thu, 24 Oct 1996 21:18:15 -0400
>From:	FSSturm@aol.com
>Sender:	owner-pianotech@byu.edu
>To:	pianotech@byu.edu
>Subject:	single vs. three string unisons (long)
>
>In a message concerning the "Tune-off", Jim Coleman, sr. mentioned
Virgil
>Smith's contention that a three-string unison is flatter in pitch
than its
>individual strings, and said that Virgil convinced him it was
true. With
> due
>respect, I beg to differ, or at least to state my skepticism.

I stumbled into this single string vs unison pitch question in the
opposite direction from you.

I have been tuning aurally since before 1955. I was totally unaware
of this question until the 1995 Convention in Albuquerque, when I
renewed an acquaintance with Virgil Smith and he asked me my
opinion.  My opinion was that there was no difference in pitch.

At the North Carolina Conference this past weekend, Dean Reyburn
was demonstrating the Cybertuner when the question was raised.  We
experimented with it and after tuning a unison, single strings
consistently showed a few hundredths of a cent sharper than did the
unison with the mutes pulled out.

It made me a believer, but I cannot use this information in any
practical way.  So far as I am concerned, it is purely academic,
such a nit-picking detail that there is no need for me to try to
apply it to my tuning.


Bill Maxim, RPT
Serving South Carolina from Greer and Columbia
Satisfying discriminating musicians since 1955