Aural versus ETD tuning training

[David Andersen]

>At 9:15 AM -0800 12/24/02, Jim Coleman, Sr. wrote:
>>One of my students who started with the SAT III in Jan 2002 tuned
>>for his first Concert Prep in Mar 2002. His work was liked so much
>>that he has replaced a 20 year aural tuner at this venue. He works
>>for a dealer who is a fine classically trained pianist who can
>>really hear. This tuner is now the preferred tuner at that dealership.
>>His aural unisons are
>>impeccable. His aural sense of balancing out the stretch of the
>>octaves is quite acceptable now. He is beginning to work on aural
>>temperament. In his last session with me he tuned a perfect 7 pbs
>>for the F3-A3 M3rd upon his first attempt. In another few weeks he
>>should have the temperament down to a fine degree.
>
>I'm sure he's a remarkable student, Jim. I'm also sure that his gifts 
>are the exception rather than the rule, that students such as he are 
>few and far between.
>
>>Of course he has
>>the SAT III as an ever present tutor.
>
>What is it teaching him, if I may ask? How to tune a piano to a 
>machine? How to visually confirm the unison tuning of coincidental 
>partials? Actually all I needed to her (which you've told me) is that 
>he has exceptional musical skills and that he has no trouble with 
>aural unisons.
>
>Bill Ballard RPT
>NH Chapter, P.T.G.

Exactly.  There's always the gifted exception.  I fell in love with 
tuning; had an immediate, powerful
talent; was floor-tuning M&H grands 2 months after I started.

The ear is the king.  There. I've said it. There's no need to fight.  Why 
aren't you proud of and confident in your own body as opposed to some 
machine?  Which one is more elegant, more refined, more 
miraculous, more delicate, more sensitive, more evolved, more ancient?

Let's revel in the inventiveness, the brilliant cunning of our race, and 
bow before the intelligence that made the stars---and your ears.

David Andersen