In a message dated 2/25/00 11:47:08 PM Pacific Standard Time, richardb@c2i.net writes: << But you mention other things in this posting of yours.. your Equal Beating Victorian gets a nice plug, (btw,,, in light of the recent Wapin discussion.. you might consider takeing out a patent on the EBVT and licensing folks at 300 bucks a shot to tune it... grin). Just what is it you are trying to point out really ?? -- Richard Brekne >> I cannot resist answering your post first, Richard. The reason for my post is that it ties in with what has been written recently about just how long it takes to do a pitch raise and fine tuning with strip mutes, etc. I was amazed myself when I finished that last piano and it was 5 o'clock sharp. I had begun tuning at 9 a.m. sharp, so that means that I had done everything that day including breaks and interruptions in exactly 8 hours. But, as I mentioned in my post, I don't think I could nor would I want to push myself that hard every day. When I have done a performance tuning at the Convention and sometimes a concert tuning here locally, I have taken that long to do just one tuning. It is all a matter of perspective. Steve Fairchild RPT went through the entire piano in under 5 minutes during his amazing feat. The best I have ever done is 10 minutes. So I still have a way to go, you might say. As for the "plugging" of the EBVT, I merely mention the actual program I use, as a matter of fact. I could have chosen an ET program or any other. I am sure that there are some people who still think that it would be "unethical" or "illegal" not to mention "immoral" to do this, so I often make a point of saying that I NEVER tune in ET and haven't done so in well over 10 years. As for patenting and licensing the EBVT, are you kidding? I can't even GIVE it away! As one of my other very jealous HT tuner colleagues likes to point out, no one, to date, has EVER been able to duplicate my "experimental" temperament. Therefore, it shall be left to me and me alone, in all the world, to have ever successfully accomplished it. }: P I'll be showing how to do it at the Convention but that won't change anything. You can bet that a year later, I will still be the only person who understands it and who has ever done it. You can't use and FAC, Tunelab or RCT program to do what I do, so if that's the only way you can try to do a tuning other than the usual way, forget it. }: P I've had days like Brian's too, many, many times. The day was not without it's own negative points, I just didn't put them in the post. The very first piano I tuned was in the choir room. Late in September, the Band teacher had me tune her piano. As expected, it was all over the place but I straightened it out. When I finished, I heard the strangest, oddest sounding, off pitch, "other world" type music coming from a nearby room. I went to see what was making that sound. It was the choir teacher playing that piano. I wondered at the time why the choir teacher did not have me tune his piano that day too. When I got to it yesterday, I found out why. I saw that it had been tuned early in September, a couple of weeks before I had done the bandroom's. It was only a year and a half old but it had a card in it that had been signed 6 times by a guy who indicated that it had been tuned to "A-440" each time. It's pitch yesterday was -25 cents with the high treble nearly 100 cents low. Each Yamaha piano is supposed to have it's action removed, all flanges tightened, the spacing, lost motion and any other regulation requirement corrected within the first year of service In the past, I have reported to that Yamaha dealer that none of this work has ever been done on the pianos he sold. Of course, I have been scoffed at for saying this since he can readily show me the "record" of service, where all the little boxes are checked and a a signature put there affirming that those services had been provided. Of course, *I* am the bad guy, the object of ridicule and scorn, the pariah of the community if I even suggest that all those cards have been fraudulently signed. I have extended my willingness to repeat my claim in a court of law, any day of the week but somehow I have never received the invitation. Since the piano was still fairly new and still had not had anything other than a bad, off pitch, really weird temperament tuning done on it but it still played reasonably well, I did my 3 pass pitch raise on it and told the choir teacher all about the situation. I will hear from that dealer, you can bet on that and I'll have to tell him all over again what the truth really is. Some of the pianos I tuned were the ones I normally take care of. They took me less than 1/2 hour. The 3 that needed regulation were also further off pitch and were also ones that the Yamaha dealer tuner is paid to service. There were 3 brand new pianos which the dealer had sent that very day proclaiming "They won't need tuning, they were done just this week." They weren't too far off pitch but their Reverse Well temperaments were far enough off of either ET or my EBVT program that they still needed 2 pass tunings. The three that needed regulation were also in Reverse Well. So, when anyone even suggests that there might be an ethical problem with using a temperament like the EBVT that I and only I, in all the world know how to tune, all I have to think of is that vast and unlimited quantity of pianos that are tuned in Reverse Well every day, offered to the public as "Standard Practice". }: P Yours truly and "honestly arrogant"-ly (as Frank Lloyd Wright use to say), Bill Bremmer RPT Madison, Wisconsin
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