How we hear to Jeneetah

[Jenneetah]

At 6:32 AM +0200 10/26/04, Quentin Codevelle wrote:
>Maybe you should keep on making soft blows, but try to hit the key 
>quickly, without listening to the note during 15 sec like you said.

There's no reason to hit the key quickly. First of all, in a scant 
3/8" stroke, the difference in acceleration between the quick stroke 
you suggest and the more comfortable stroke I settled on, is 
insignificant. The main difference between the two is that in trying 
to get maximum acceleration out of 3/8", what you get is the 
sensation of slamming into the front rail punching. As I said, a 
relaxed blow delivers the sound I use for unison tuning (ie, the 7th 
partial) just fine. Like trying to play a harpsichord loudly, it 
simply doesn't work.

Do I need to listen to 15 seconds of sound to set a unison? No. I'm 
sure I can nail unisons as fast as anyone else in this discussion. 
However, yesterday, I did check the "working life" of a couple of 7th 
partials for academic reasons. (We've got a thread going on here, and 
I wanted to contribute real-life observations.) First, I wanted to 
see whether the decay of the 7ths was noticeably hastened (whether my 
working time with them was seriously cut short) using the soft blow i 
described (finger in contact with key, at a dead stop). Observations: 
the 7ths were clearly audible even after 15 seconds. Second, after 
zero-beating these early on, I wanted to listen for as long as they 
were audible, to confirm whether these partials were really 
zero-beated, or simply had long periods (8,10,14 seconds, whatever). 
Third, for a 7th partial which didn't "peel off" during its entire 
audible life, I wanted to confirm that none of the partials below it 
came unstuck either. They didn't, allowing me to continue to suspect 
that if the 7th hold steady for as long as audible (say, 15 seconds) 
the 1st partial might even approach 105 seconds, if we could convince 
it to sustain that long.

Quentin, I'd bet that given pianos of reasonably balanced string and 
pin friction, we'd both arrive at satisfactory unisons in roughly the 
same time.

>That way you'll be able to hear the "attack" of the note, the first 
>stage of the sound that is produced.

I do my work in the aftersound phase of the sound, and am not 
interested in the prompt sound. It can be as loud and obnoxious or 
mild and self-effacing as it wants. I don't go to work until it's 
through.

>Having a clear and pure sounding attack is very important for me, 
>and I've never succeeded in having a clear attack when tuning with 
>listening to the note more than 2 or 3 seconds.

By clear and pure sounding, I assume you mean uncluttered by 
mechanical "collision" sounds as well as the cloud of extremely high, 
short-lived inharmonic partials. The kind of stuff that occurs 
because one is hitting too hard.

In general the prompt sound has given over to the aftersound after 
the first second. Why would the clarity of an attack depend on how 
long you spend listening to the rest of the sound?.

>I need much concentration right now to make clean unissons on every 
>note with this technique, that means it takes some time to have a 
>good eveness.

Nothing wrong with a deliberate pace, it's a big ingredient in tuning 
stability also.

>But since the beginning, you should hear a difference, YOUR sound 
>will be turning from black to white.

Right back atcha. May your sound be rich with chocolate and 
rasberries, crowned with mushrooms and garlic. <G>