A440 and the tuning exam (was A440=Fork)

[Kent Swafford]

>Ed, respectfully, we do not need to test an examinee on his
>ability to recognise that standard pitch is A440. We need to
>verify that he knows how to use a tuning fork. Period. The
>accuracy of tuning forks of diverse sorts is a matter for those
>engineers and manufacturers who produce them, and if there is a
>serious, deep reaching, with all kinds of ominous ramifications
>for the world at large problem with these pitch devices, then
>those folks need to do something about it. In the meantime,
>measuring the skill of a piano tuner has in itself nothing to do
>with his ability to manufacture a tuning fork. 

When the PTG tuning exam was first established, the scoring was adjusted 
to allow for the actual pitch of the examinee's pitch source. No longer.

What has gone unsaid here is that the tuning fork has been supplanted 
technologically by more accurate electronic pitch sources. Electronic 
pitch sources may be used for the tuning exam as long as they have no 
visual display/pitch measurement of an external pitch.

When I was starting out in piano tuning, piano tuners would bring tuning 
forks together and they would all be at different pitches. There was no 
way to determine which one (if any) was right, and which were wrong.

Today things are different. I have a little demonstration that I use in 
my classes. I turn on a two decade old Hale ElectroFork and then measure 
the pitch simultaneously with a decade old Sanderson Accu-Tuner and RCT 
running on a two year old laptop. So far, RCT and the SAT have both 
displayed the ElectroFork as dead on A=440. (Try that with 3 tuning forks 
of the same ages.)

The point is that if these electronic tuning devices all agree, the 
chances are very good that they are all accurate. The chances that they 
are all inaccurate by identical amounts is negligible.

This is the world in which the PTG tuning exam operates. Examinees who 
wish to give themselves the best advantage on the exam will consider 
using an electronic pitch source.

Kent Swafford