ears and electricity

[Östen Häggmark]

Dear mr Oorebeek.
Referring to my earlier posting in the Foot-switch-thread I'd like to say
that I don't mean that ETD-tunings are better or anything of that kind. The
advanced ETD is just a tool etc, as has been stated many times in the
discussion. You can also do very well without it. As I said, the main body
of Swedish tuners (and I would think european, but you'd know better about
that) don't use it.

But in my (small!) experience, using an advanced ETD like the SAT can
improve my tuning and/or give me a better understandning of what I'm doing.
I didn't believe it would before I tried it, and to be honest, tradition
and psychology makes part of me say: I don't wan't a machine doing my job!

The ETD-question in Sweden is a complicated issue with dimensions beyond
any objective discussion of the value of ETD:s. Much of what Mr Barrie
Heaton has told us about things in his country is valid for Sweden as well.
For one thing, for many years we (well not so many years in my case) have
educated our customers that an ETD-tuner is not a real tuner, and for good
reasons as we saw them. The cowboy :-) mr Barrie Heaton spoke of has been
(and is) a reality, and like he also hinted at maybe the nature of our
educational institutions makes a distinction between the educated and the
non-educated easier to make (for good and bad). In view of this, naturally
it's a pedagogic and public relation problem to explain to the customers
that maybe the times have changed and that nowadays the use of an ETD don't
necesserily signify a second-rate tuning. Maybe it's a pedagogic problem
explaining it to ourselves.=20

Personally I feel that things will settle in the future. I can't see that
there's any rush. If good ETD:s are useful tools they will be accepted in
the long term. Even if they are useful and still not accepted, well, is it
the end of the world? In the meantime, lets enjoy the interesting debates
and the new things we learn in the process.
=20

A few thoughts on the SAT from a new beginner:

Maybe it's a question of handling the SAT but in tight spots where time is
short I feel that my aural technique is faster and accurate enough.
Tweaking the temperature with 0.1 cents isn't as important as fixing this
or that and getting the instrument into shape. Mr Musselwhite put it very
well:

>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

The same goes for good well-scaled instruments where using the SAT
sometimes feels unnecessery. For the not-so-well-scaled small upprights a
FAC tuning gives me a very good foundation to get things right.=20
In some cases the problems arising in tuning an instrument don't have their
roots in inharmonicity, which is what the SAT deals with, and you are still
left to deal with them yourself.

The best time with the SAT is when I have the time to sit down at a piano
and listen, watch and learn, trying different things. At this point it's
more like figuring out what the SAT is actually doing, but at the same time
it gives me feedback on my own tuning.

All these things are only the conclusions of an swedish-trained tuner with
only a brief acquaintence (that was a hard one to spell!) with the SAT, and
I guess that the oldtimers have heard it all before. Maybe it's of some
interest.=20

I want to stress that I certainly don't consider myself a master tuner or
see myself as any senior pianotech. Around here I'm more like a junior
technician, but I happen to have an interest in the internet so thats why
you're hearing from me.

It's saturday night so I'll wish everybody a nice weekend.

=D6sten H=E4ggmark
Pianotechnician SPTF
Stockholm, Sweden
email: haggmark@mailbox.calypso.net=20