[pianotech] Re: Tuning the Duplex (was ...Capo)

[Duplexdan@aol.com]

To Richard Moody, especially, and anyone else who is interested in 
the Duplex Scale Effect.

This is the Story of The Orlando Kawai Tuneoff between Virgil Smith and Jim 
Coleman.

This is a story I was saving for Duplexities, a page in my improved Duplex 
Scale Website, but it seems appropriate to bring it up here. It pertains to 
the perception of the duplex scale effect when music is played on the 
instrument.

To recall the format of the Orlando Tuneoff: there were four Kawais; all the 
same size and all as close to the same number as the factory would give us. 
Each tuner was to tune one piano prior to the event, and one piano during the 
event. After all pianos were tuned the curtain was closed and they mixed up 
the pianos so the audience of about three hundred could not tell who tuned 
which instrument.

After the tuning, the two technicians were asked to play a piece of music on 
two of the instruments. We were asked to rate the tone and tune in a number 
of categories such as unisons, octaves, fifths , temperament, general tone 
....as far as I can remember. 

The objective of the Tuneoff was to match aural tuning , of which Virgil was 
the exponent, against Jim Coleman who used an ETD. If you were at the 
previous Tuneoff in Chicago you may remember that Jim won the tuneoff with 
higher marks, which was supposed to indicate that ETD's were superior to 
aural techniques. And iin the Orlando Tuneoff, if this fact were to obtain we 
expected Jim to win again. 
Fate would have been with him except for a peculiar accident.

When all the pianos were tuned and all lthe grades were in, one piano seemed 
to stand out in the scoring more than double of any of the other three. I was 
sitting in the front row with a few colleagues, and I occasionally peeked 
over at their scores to see if my opinion was mine alone or was shared. The 
few techs to my right and the few techs to my left all seemed to share my 
scoring more or less.

Virgil won the tuneoff by a landslide. Piano #2 came in a lame second. Piano 
#3 and #4 came in waayyyy behind. This would seem to have indicated that 
either Virgil was a much better tuner, or that Aural tuning was superior to 
ETD's. Personally i didn't believe either. Jim Coleman's work is known 
worldwide and Nobody is twice as good as Jim. As far as ETD's are concerned, 
anyone who doubts their value is simply living in the past. So I was left 
with the question. And I asked it of myself and a few colleagues who were in 
the front rown with me.

I wish I had taken down their names, and possibly one or two of them will 
come forward to testify of what I am about to state. We went on stage and 
tested the Duplex Scales of all four pianos. The Kawai Piano that came out so 
far ahead in the scoring was the only one of the four with a perfectly tuned 
Duplex Scale. The piano that came out second had a partiallly tuned Duplex 
Scale and the two laggards had untuned Duplex Scales.

So the next day in the lobby I saw Jim and Virgil who are best friends and 
highly respected technicians by each other as well as our membership. I 
remember saying to Jim and Virgil, with a little mischievious pride: "Jim, 
you really didn't lose the Tuneoff. And Virgil, you really didn't win it. The 
Victor in this event wasThe Duplex Scale".

Hope this helps to answer your question. But it never will satisfy you until 
you do it yourself, I don't believe.

Dan Franklin