On 5/28/02 9:52 PM, "Benny L. Tucker" <precisionpiano@alltel.net> wrote: > it's that dang tenor section. It seems like the better I get, the more I can > hear, the worse I actually tune. Sounds to me like you are coming along fine. Welcome to the club. Now that your ear is sufficiently trained, there is no such thing as a perfectly tuned unison because no matter how small the error, you can hear it. And there is no such thing as "no error", because when you are tuning sufficiently well, you will be tuning to the limits of the piano, that is, you will hear even string wildness as a tuning error. And you will hear _any_ instability in the pitch of a string as "wildness". And _all_ pianos have at least some instability. As your ability to hear imperfection grows, so will the quality of your tunings. This is how high-level tuning skills are developed, by learning to listen. But, oh my, those imperfections that you think you must eliminate but cannot, will be magnified in your psyche, since what a piano tuner _does_ is learn how to hear tuning errors in order to try to eliminate them. "And hear them you will," as Yoda might say. The only solution is experience. It will teach you how well things must really be tuned in the face of inevitable imperfection. When I have spent a bunch of time on a piano, and believe it still ought to be better, but seem to have done all I can do, I close up the piano and play some music -- not tuning checks. Often what I hear when I switch gears like this is a surprise -- a nicely tuned piano. Even if you don't play the piano, you can learn some chords to make a pretty sound, even if it is just some parallel major triads. I bet you are doing well. Just learn at some point towards the end of each tuning to shut off your tuner's ears and fire up your musician's ears. Music isn't made until the tuner's ears are offline, IMHO. Best wishes, Kent Swafford
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