"John M. Formsma" wrote: > > List, > > There has been mention on the list from those who routinely do a normal > tuning in 45 minutes or less. For those of you who can do this aurally... > > Would all your tunings pass the tuning exam for the RPT test, or are some > below par? If no, how do you justify leaving a piano below "minimal" > standards? Doubtfull that most such tunings would pass the test, as for justifying this... I have never met a tuner who doesnt assess and judge when to put heart and soul into a tuning and when not to. Much depends on the quality of the piano, how well its been kept (indirectly how much the customer really cares about the instrument) and what the demands on the instrument are likely to be. I wont go into this deeper but such tunings can still be quite acceptable and indeed appropriate... and of course they can be the opposite of these. > > Do you tune that fast for concerts, or just for "lower-end" tunings? I have the luxury of not having much to do with lower-end jobs much anymore, as for fast for concerts... almost never and only then when the situation leaves me no choice > > How long do you spend on temperament, octaves, unisons? typically 20 minutes total on each of the above.. and perhaps as much as 20 more tweaking the tuning on critical jobs. > > How even is the piano? I.e., are all the intervals ascending/descending > evenly? > Three years ago my tunings were quite uneven.. but these days I am getting quite good indeed. I think the use of RCT and Tunelab has helped me quite a bit, and subjecting myself to learning to tune to satisfy another tuner in town has also been quite valuable. You have to really look at what a tuning essentially is to understand how another tuner works.. what that tuners priorities are. This can be a very valuable skill in itself... to be able to sit down and figure out quickly just what another tuner does... > What kind of stability is achieved? > Stability has always been my strong point... a few pianos throw me from time to time.. but for the most part they sit like a rock. I think this has to do with the time I spend on usual tunings. I never use under an hour and almost always am at about an hour and fifteen minutes for pianos that are well out of tune to begin with. As I sell 1 & 1/2 hour time slots for piano service instead of "tunings" this works well for me. > How are your unisons? Three strings perfectly tuned, really close, or what? Again.. I have had to work on this this past year. There is no such thing as a perfectly tuned unision, for much the same reason as a perfectly tuned octave does not exist. You can match partials in different ways and sometimes these can be quite clean indeed, other times you just gotta decide whats best. Again the use of RCT and Tune lab have been enlightening > > Do you concentrate mostly on good unisons and octaves? I personally weigh these pretty evenly as they seem quite related. Especially in the higher treble it seems like getting really good unisons is dependant on good choices being made in the octave types decided upon earlier on. Of late I think I am starting to be able to anticipate what will work best for the last two octave, but I am not sure of this yet. > > Any other thing I have left out? > grin.. I think that about covers it. > Thanks in advance, > > John Formsma > Blue Mountain, MS -- Richard Brekne I.C.P.T.G. N.P.T.F. Associate, PTG Bergen, Norway
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