Aural vs. electronic again

David Andersen bigda@gte.net
Fri, 24 Jan 2003 12:11:37 -0700


>It's a wonderful mysterious world. A friend of mine, now gone, also a 
>student of Bill Garlick's, described it as meditation.

Hi, Bill.  Bill Garlick is a hero of mine; the 2 weeks I spent with him 
at the Steinway factory in '83, especially the late night, unofficial 
sessions back at the factory, were life-changing for me.  The precision 
and intuition with which he approached the work; his insistence on living 
an artistic, culturally rich life as almost a prerequisite for doing fine 
piano work; his pleasure in using his body as a feedback loop; his deep, 
innate respect for people; his trust in his own, individual way of doing 
things; his absolute trust in his own ears -----became the basis for my 
successful career.

I'd love to have a long talk with you about aural tuning; it's my first 
and greatest love in this craft.
I feel I've elevated my skills to a world-class level by using 
dead-simple methods:  basically allowing all the fourths on the piano to 
beat (depending on the piano & its inharmonicities & scale design)
slowly, between .5 and 2.0 bps---the same across the entire scale, 
listening to the whole tone.
The aim of my tuning is beauty----evenness and key color, a deep, deep 
bass, and the same bloom in the struck note that I hear in the plucked 
note.  My ideal is the great pianos I heard on record when I was a 
child----all tuned by aural tuners using the "one mute, one fork, and one 
tuning hammer" method.

Coming to Dallas?  Let's hook up.

I truly enjoy your posts.

David Andersen

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