"quite listenable, not perfect, but enjoyable" (was Re: )

[Jim Coleman, Sr.]

Hi Keith:

I have a copy of the Guinness Book of Records dated 1986. On page 318 I
read the following:

"PIANO TUNING  The record time for pitchraising (one semitone or 100 
cents) and then returning a piano to a musically acceptable quality is
4 min. 20 seconds by Steve Fairchild at the Piano Technicians Guild 
contest at the Dante Piano Co. factory, ronkonkoma, NY Feb 5, 1980."

For several years Steve had been doing a similar demonstration at PTG
meetings. In most of these cases he had someone time him with a stop
watch. It was my understanding that the Guinness people require three
timers for a record to become official.

Obviously this took a great deal of training and dedication to achieve
this goal. He told me that he worked out at the Gym often to get himself
in shape physically for this. It obviously took a toll on his nerves
too.

A little side note to all this is that I believe Steve has established
the record as the most perfect tuner in the world. His Aural Tuning
Emulator program allows the best balance of all intervals on a piano.
This is a computer program written in Super Calc V which computes the 
Inharmonicity coefficient of each note based upon physical measurements
of each string (measurements require about 30 minutes to complete).
The program then compares all neighboring and contiguous M3rds, parallel
10ths, 17ths, 12ths, double octaves and allows for choices of 4-2, 6-3
or 8-4 type octaves by the operator.

If there is anyone out there who is just driven to do the most perfect
tuning, Steve sells this computer program for $500. Where this program
excels all of the present programs and machines in that each note of
the piano is measured. RCT measures only 3 to 6 notes, TuneLab can measure
many more or all, The SATs with FAC measure 3 notes, but they all do 
smooth curving between the measured data. Steve's program utilizes the
beat results and through several iterations maximizes the balance of
all these intervals just as the finest Aural Tuners attempt to do. The
final results are printed out so that these numbers can be entered in
an ETD and then the piano is tuned.

Well, it may not seem very practical to do all of that measuring for
each piano, but for a very important piano which is tuned often, the
results may be well worthwhile.

jim Coleman, Sr.

PS I got tired of writing. There is more later if there is interest.

On Sat, 29 Jan 2000 kam544@flash.net wrote:

> >..I was attempting to determine whether Steve
> >Fairchild's 5-minute piano tuning was ever checked for ACCURACY by ANYONE...
> >Dave
> 
> Thank you for this clarification.
> 
> To be entered into the Guinness World Records, there has to be
> documentation and verification of said facts.  What processes were actually
> in place for affirmation when this record was set is unknown to me.  I
> certainly look forward to this information possibly surfacing in the future.
> 
> >...Let me quickly apologize if I have offended anyone or stepped on any
> >fragile
> >egos...
> 
> Likewise!
> 
> Keith McGavern
> Registered Piano Technician
> Oklahoma Chapter 731
> Piano Technicians Guild
> USA
> 
> 
>