New York Times Article

[Billbrpt@AOL.COM]

Dear List,

Here's a copy of an article that appeared in Monday's New York Times.  
Comments, anyone?

Bill Bremmer RPT
Madison, Wisconsin

<<Piano tuning goes digital with CyberTuner
New York Times
Monday, February 21, 2000

Piano tuning is a quirky, sparsely populated profession. Like glass blowing,
the skill is often handed down from one generation to the next. And it is
difficult to learn. The traditional rule of thumb, or ear, is that it can
take three years, or 1,000 tunings, before a professional tuner can tune a
piano well.
John Callahan, a piano technician in Oakland, Calif., who is now 42, learned
to tune pianos from his father when he was 16. After the younger Callahan
opened his own business, he relied on his ears and a tuning fork. But when
he tunes a piano now, he fires up his laptop computer, places it atop the
piano and calls up a software program called CyberTuner.
Callahan still must use his ears to listen to the pitch and a tuning hammer
to manipulate the tuning pins. What CyberTuner adds is a highly accurate
visual readout of the pitch of the strings as they are struck or played.
With CyberTuner, Callahan can create a customized, uniform tuning for each
of the 800 or so pianos he tunes each year. Tuning a piano with CyberTuner
usually is no faster than tuning a piano by ear. But settings for each piano
are stored in the computer for future reference, eliminating the need to
reinvent the wheel every time Callahan returns to tune the same instrument.
While there are many tuning aids, the CyberTuner software has inspired a
loyal following among tuners such as Callahan. Another popular product is
Accu-Tuner, a stand-alone device that is used by more tuners than
CyberTuner.
But not only are CyberTuner, Accu-Tuner and other such products anathema to
some tuners, they also are the unlikely fuel that has helped rekindle a
debate over how pianos should sound in the first place.
CyberTuner is the work of Dean Reyburn, a professional piano tuner and
amateur computer programmer in Cedar Springs, Mich., who wrote the program a
few years ago. Reyburn has sold about 1,000 copies of the program at $800
each.
Callahan marvels at the program's versatility and power. "If Dean Reyburn
lived in Silicon Valley, none of this would have happened," Callahan said.
"Instead of writing this obscure program to help a few thousand piano geeks,
he'd be working at a computer company and probably making millions."
Many tuners prefer Accu-Tuner, a more entrenched mainstay of the
piano-tuning world. Accu-Tuner is the invention of Albert Sanderson, a
physicist in Chelmsford, Mass., who has been creating electronic tuning
devices since 1973. Sanderson has sold nearly 6,000 of his Accu-Tuners,
which means that many of the country's tuners -- a number that some put at
10,000 and others at 15,000 -- use some kind of electronic tuner.
Neither product is aimed at untrained hobbyists who might want to avoid
hiring a professional tuner. "If you try to do this on your own," said
Taylor Mackinnon, vice president of the Piano Technicians Guild, "be sure to
have a good piano tuner's phone number at hand."
For convenience's sake
While the $1,200 Accu-Tuner is a self-contained device, Reyburn's CyberTuner
software takes advantage of a laptop's power, which allows it to do more
things. But those who prefer the Accu-Tuner say they would find it too
cumbersome to carry a laptop to every tuning job. (Reyburn and Sanderson
currently are in a patent dispute over a feature that automatically steps a
tuner from one note to the next.)
Karla Pfennig, a tuner in Austin, Texas, who uses Accu-Tuner, said, "I'd
have to take my G3 PowerBook around, and I'm not going to do it." Speaking
of Accu-Tuner, she added, "It's dedicated, and it has a battery that lasts
for weeks, as opposed to hours."
Then there are the purists, who shun any kind of electronic aid altogether.
The danger of a device such as CyberTuner, many tuners say, is that it
becomes a crutch. Steinway & Sons, for instance, allows its concert
technicians to tune only by ear.
Anita Sullivan, a tuner in Corvallis, Ore., said that she had no need for an
electronic device. "I learned to tune aurally by a tuner who learned
aurally," Sullivan said. "It's such a beautiful way to do it, I've never
seen any reason to change."
But Callahan disagreed about the value of a computerized tuning program:
"It's like an X-ray. It doesn't mean you don't need the doctor anymore, but
it gives you a much better diagnostic tool."
Even with electronic tuning instruments, tuning remains an artistic and
creative task. "We tell people, 'Don't leave your ears at home,' " Sanderson
said. "If you're tuning with this thing, there will be some times you will
disagree with the instrument. Go with your ears."
Tuners such as Sullivan see the electronic devices as tools of convenience.
"It's useful when tuners have to do a quick pitch raise," she said,
referring to a special, time-consuming tuning for every key on pianos that
have not been tuned for a long time. "Or if you can't hear well because
there's lots of noise, or if you're working in a shop and want to do a bunch
of pianos and get them in the ballpark."
Ill-tempered about tunings
But for tuners who use electronic aids without apology, convenience is the
least of it.
Perhaps the most controversial feature of electronic tuning is its ability
to help a tuner change a piano's tuning, also known as its temperament, with
ease.
Modern pianos are tuned in "equal temperament," which divides each octave
into 12 equal half-steps. The frequency of a note is adjusted up or down,
sacrificing some harmony in all keys so none are too dissonant.
On the other hand, in many tunings that were popular in the Baroque period,
intervals are extremely pure in some keys at the expense of others,
increasing the dissonance in those keys.
When Bach wrote his famous "Well-Tempered Clavier" -- pieces that exploit
the 24 major and minor keys in which they were written -- in the first half
of the 18th century, it gave rise to the term "well temperament." That
tuning scheme, although not an example of absolute equal temperament, was a
departure from earlier tunings and allowed keyboardists to play all the
pieces without retuning the instrument.
Equal temperament is now universally accepted, but its detractors view it as
an unhappy compromise. They say historic temperaments are essential to
unlock the emotional charge of earlier music.
CyberTuner comes with 57 historical temperaments, which can depart a little
or a lot from absolutely equal temperament.
Mordecai Shehori, a concert pianist in New York, is the rare pianist who
tunes his own instrument. Shehori uses CyberTuner whenever he tunes his
piano. He is not an advocate of historical temperaments, but he often
changes tunings slightly, according to the composer he is playing.
"When the octaves are stretched very little, it creates purer sonorities and
leaner sound, which fits better Scarlatti, Mozart and Haydn," he said. "When
the octaves are stretched more, it creates a more robust, gritty sound that
fits better to Schumann, Brahms or Liszt."
A growing number of tuners are beginning to experiment with different
tunings. That would be very difficult without electronic tuning; tuners
would have to spend days studying the different temperaments, then trying to
achieve them by ear.
Technicians such as Callahan say the electronic devices reduce the work
involved in producing different tunings to the same amount of time it would
take to tune a piano in equal temperament. "The historical temperaments are
now available at the touch of a button," he said. "It takes a late 20th
century laptop sitting on top of a 100-year-old piano to allow me to touch a
button and instantly choose a temperament that's appropriate for music
written in 1780."
Callahan often asks serious pianists whether they would like to try a new
tuning, and those who say yes are not disappointed. "I haven't had one
customer yet ask me to take the tuning off," Callahan said.>>