Dear Dave, I am happy that you have taken up the tuning discussion on this list and if you ever feel that this becomes tedious to our colleagues, I welcome your comments to me personally at hsrosen@emi.net. It's difficult for me to understand your letter as I am uncertain of your gist. > From: DGPEAKE@aol.com > To: pianotech@ptg.org > Subject: Re: Tuning > Date: Sunday, September 28, 1997 12:07 AM > > Then what are we listening to? Pure 5ths wide open, or a chords and > variations? Please rephrase. > By stacking the 3rds, you are allowing an even progression......... What do you mean by the term "stacking the 3rds"? Do you mean an even progression of contiguous 3rds? If so, why do you think that anyone is suggesting that you do not continue this practice? It's an excellent technique for dividing ANY size octave into 3 equal intervals. > therefore by tuning octaves beatless, you will have automatic stretch. In a piano, an "octave " is never one thing. It will vary in size depending on whether you mean 2:1, or 4:2 etc. Because of inharmonicity, octaves are never beatless. They might sound that way because some coincidental partials are very strong. >... being a SAT user as well as an aural tuner, my readings are well stretched. How can your tunings be stretched with beatless octaves? This is a problem with terminology. Your "beatless octaves" are probably of the 2:1 kind. In that case your triple octaves will be flat. Regardless of your SAT readings, a musical ear will find that unsatisfactory. I am reminded of the time I attended a local technical given by 2 very famous pianotechs. Both are highly technical and neither is a musician of any kind. Their treble tuning was, in my opinion, musically unsatisfying. (But who am I?) I guess different techs come from different directions. To me the last word is not a printed readout, but "is it musically satisfying?" Howard S. Rosen, RPT Boynton Beach, Florida hsrosen@emi.net
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC