Unison beats good?

[Horace Greeley]

Rob,

Learning to tune a beatless unison is, like learning to tune
in equal temperament, a place to start.  It is to tuning what
the scales, Hanon and Czerny are for the pianist...the foundation
of our technique, or lack of one.

Once the technique is solid, then those limitations no long
impose themselves on our musical judgment, and any number
of wonderful things can take place.

Best.

Horace



At 02:43 PM 11/5/98 -0500, you wrote:
>List,
>"Even the unison strings of a piano sound better when de-tuned to a minute
>degree (app. 2 cents total spread, corresponding to 2/3 beat per second @
>a440). Fortunately a good piano tuner attempting to achieve true unison gets,
>on the average, a similar result"
>
>Dr Daniel W. Martin
>H D Baldwin Co
>Tech Jo. April 1964
>
>This interested me greatly because I had always considered my unisons to be
>beatless, when they were right - if you know what I mean.  However, when one
>talks to an organ tuner he will say that he can wait 20-30 seconds or more for
>a beat!  This leads me to believe that there is truth in the above.
>
>Any thoughts greatly appreciated
>
>
>Rob Thornton
>UK