Tuning Exam Tip

[Horace Greeley]

Folks,

John's experience at Cal. State Long Beach calls to mind the thought that
as places which consistently prove themselves to be so well setup, managed,
etc., should really get some kind of recognition above and beyond whatever
remuneration (if any) is paid.  It takes a good deal of time and effort to
maintain a testing site at this level, certainly more than most
institutions actually require.

Kudos are also in order for Kathy Smith (Technician at CSULB), David
Vanderlip (Technician at Pomona College), Teri Meredyth, Steve Schell, and
anyone else whose name I do not recall who is/are involved in the care and
feeding of this superior testing/instruction site.

Best.

Horace



At 08:27 AM 1/10/97 -0500, you wrote:
>Hi Dean,
>
>We carefully checked the upper octaves aurally, me and
>the 3 tuning examiners (Teri Meredyth, RPT, Steve
>Schell, RPT, and Brian Holt, RPT).  My upper octaves
>were noticeably narrow.  It's possible that I
>subtracted the cents incorrectly for the highest
>octave, but I had enough time to go over the entire
>piano 4 times, I rechecked the high treble a fifth
>time, and I tried to be very careful each time.
>
>To be honest, I didn't even check the upper octave for
>clean sounding octaves aurally (my mistake), I just
>tuned straight off the SAT using the high-treble-tip.
>I'm completely to blame for the errors as I'm the one
>who tuned the piano.  I guess this is a good lesson in
>that your ears must be the final judge - not a machine!
>(Although, the SAT scored at 95+ percent (overall
>average) during this exam - not bad.)
>
>As far as the master tuning possibly being "off" a bit,
>I don't think this was the case.  The piano (Yamaha C3)
>was master-tuned several years ago, and they rechecked
>it just last year making very, very minor mods.  Of all
>the examiners to be guilty of not strictly following
>the exam rules for the upper octaves, these would be
>the last folks to do it.  My exam experiences in Long
>Beach were by far some of the most professional, fair,
>encouraging, and helpful experiences I have ever
>encountered.  The Long Beach test center for Southern
>California has got to be one of the best.  And all the
>examiners I encountered were ultra-professional.
>
>Anyways, I still suggest to future examinees to tune
>the exam piano the way you would any other piano in
>real life - just do your best, and aurally check those
>upper octaves when using an ETD!
>
>Regards,
>
>John Piesik, RPT
>
>
>Usually the above tip is very helpful if the examiners follow the exam
>rules and set up the highest octave tuning to single octaves.  They
>sometimes don't, in this case they probably tuned to double octaves or
>wider, a better sounding tuning but not strictly following the rules which
>specify clean single octaves.
>
>I would love to have checked the the single 2:1 octaves on that master
>tuning, I'm pretty sure they would check very wide.
>
>See you in Febuary!
>
>-Dean
>
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Dean L. Reyburn, RPT
> 2695 Indian Lakes Road
> Cedar Springs, Michigan, USA             web page:   www.reyburn.com
> 1-888-SOFT-440 (or 616-696-0500)            email:  dean@reyburn.com
>
>
>
>
Horace Greeley

Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.

Stanford University
email: hgreeley@leland.stanford.edu
voice mail: 415.725.9062
LiNCS help line: 415.725.4627