Another PTG RPT Tuning Exam Passed!

[Billbrpt@AOL.COM]

Dear List,

On a purely positive note, I would like to announce that PTG Associate Member 
Jeffry Arnold of Green Bay, Wisconsin and of the North Central Wisconsin 
Chapter came to Madison Saturday to take his RPT Tuning Exam.  He is a 
relative newcomer and only has 2 years experience.  He passed and with some 
impressive scores!  He has yet to take his Technical Exam but he is well on 
the way to becoming a new RPT.

I would like to note that he is an aural only tuner because of two reasons.  
One, he passed.  I have seen many an Electronic Tuning Device (ETD) tuner 
pass the portion allowing the use of the ETD with flying colors only to fail 
in the end because a mere 2 octaves in the middle tuned by ear only proved to 
be something not within that person's range of skills. 

This is not a good thing for either the Examiner nor the Examinee to have to 
deal with.  For this reason, the recent change to having this part done first 
has been a big improvement in the Exam.  It takes a lot of tediousness out of 
it and the person who cannot pass this section gets to leave early, not fail 
in the end or have some time to be tutored if so desired.

The other is that I noted that Jeff Arnold is an aural only tuner is that he 
has now qualified himself to actually use the ETD.  Allowing a student to use 
an ETD at first would be much like letting a kid use a calculator before 
really learning his or her addition, subtraction, multiplication and division 
tables.  A skill learned early on is never forgotten but I think it would be 
very difficult to learn those skills after already being able to use a 
calculator.  I understand that circumstances may make it easier to get better 
work done at first but the student who does not learn aural skills can never 
really appreciate what tuning is all about.

The Acronym, <<ET>> stands for <<Equal Temperament>>.  It would be my guess 
that a student using some inexpensive kind of ETD would not even know what 
that means.  To such a person, a note is correct when the needle points to 
the "right" place.  But let me make it very clear:  the theoretical values 
for ET, which are what the needle points to on those devices, are no more 
representative of making a tuning good enough to play beautiful music on the 
piano than the grid lines on a map represent the actual geography.  They are 
only a paradigm, a point of reference to which only one note is usually 
tuned, A4.  Virtually all of the others must be "off" to some degree or 
another.

If this sounds confusing or bewildering, then it points to the reason to get 
a fork and start practicing aural tuning.  The practice of setting and 
controlling Slowly Beating Intervals (SBI), 4ths, 5ths and octaves and 
Rapidly Beating Intervals (RBI), 3rds, 6ths, 10ths, 17ths, etc., takes time 
and patience.  If work has already begun using an ETD,  an aural tuning 
should be attempted first, then "correct" it with the ETD when there is the 
time to do so.  A person taking the RPT Tuning Exam must be able to tune an 
adequate temperament and span of notes from C3 to B4 in order to become an 
RPT.  I hope this provision will never be deleted.

One can never hope to go beyond the minimum professional standard of ET and 
the RPT Tuning Exam being an ETD tuner only. If one cannot recognize and 
control the rates of beating in ET, then using an ETD to tune any other kind 
of temperament is really a shot in the dark.  Alternative and Historical 
Temperaments (HT) should only be practiced by people who understand them 
well.  If an error is programmed into the ETD, it will not even be known by 
the tuner but the customer might well pick up on it and if it is known that 
what has been done is anything like nonstandard, unconventional or 
experimental, the consequences can be very negative and far reaching.

Aural tuning comes first, always.  This is my opinion but I know many will 
agree with it and they will all be people who can tune aurally whether they 
now use ETD's or not.

Bill Bremmer RPT
Madison, Wisconsin