ears and electricity

[John Musselwhite]

At 02:28 PM 1/18/97 +0000, Andr=E9 wrote:

>At the Piano technical Academy, first year students start their training
with a machine.
[...]
>What struck me every time I met a fully professional (concert grand
trained) japanese technician, was the fact that they refuse to make use of
machines afterwards.
[...]
>They make very good tunings and they sometimes let me know (specifially)
that I should not use (their) tuning machine.

I've used their machines before, Andr=E9.  I would not use them in a concert
situation either. However, I would not hesitate to use my SAT and in fact
several concert artists lately have made positive comments on techs using
them in other places.=20

In my opinion the Yamaha PT is little more than a fancy guitar tuner - OK
for learning to listen but not really accurate enough for field work unless
all you work on are Yamahas.

>Because this discussion about several ways of making a tuning is such a
topic, I am fascinated to learn what tuners in America, Europa >and other
parts of the world< think about this.

I'm in Canada, and as you are probably aware I think ETDs are just another
tool in our arsenal which we can use to bring more pleasure to piano owners.

In MOST cases the "tuning" isn't really the most important part of what we
do anyway since most of the world wouldn't know an in-tune piano from one
that's only sort-of in tune. The finest and most careful tuning will be
ignored if there's a sticky key or a squeeky pedal or if the regulation or
voicing is so poor it won't produce tone.=20


John Musselwhite, RPT              =20
Calgary, Alberta Canada  =20
musselj@cadvision.com