Hey all---- I have absolutely no experience with HT or WT, but I've been tuning good grands in ET for 30 years, and have got to a place where, as has been said before, the piano tells me where it wants to be vis a vis the stretch--- but ALWAYS within a very small parameter of difference, and every grand piano ALWAYS wants to be stretched. Unless you like your double, triple, and quadruple octaves to be flat, and your arpeggios to sound pinched and unfriendly. <g>. Beautiful, musical tuning starts with the absolute, stable precision of the temperament, which is then delivered to the rest of the piano via octave tuning; finally, the instrument starts to sing when the unisons become truly as one. It amazes me that as I grow in this craft, "setting a good temperament" becomes more and more precise, shimming unisons and making adjustments in incredibly small increments; "beatless," instead of being a tiny spot, sometimes can seem like the Grand Canyon; and unisons can be stood absolutely stock still, from the moment of impact until the last dying whisper. After 30 years, I feel like I'm just beginning to understand what a really good tuning is. One good thing among many the EDT has brought is a return to open-string tuning---there is no more precise or fun way to tune a piano than with all the strings open and full. It's vertiginous and scary at first when you quit using the temperament strip---at least it was for me, 3 years ago---but doing it has reinvigorated my tuning pleasure and, after thousands and thousands of tunings, catapulted me into better and better work, which guarantees a successful business. Along with the Golden Rule. And coffee. And a buncha money. An' a purty gurl thankin' ah'm a big stud.....oops--- OT! OT! OT! OT! OT! OT! Take care, all, and be happy..... David Andersen
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