Qustion about beats in tuning

[tune4u@earthlink.net]

Please be careful about being 'rigidly right' in your postings. Just makes for nastiness and hard feelings on the list. Been there, done that, got the souvenir teeshirt.
 
Now, let's think about what you said:
 
First, there is a long, long history of highly skilled tuners with 7, 8, and 9 beats dancing in their heads and folks like Reblitz putting it in there books.
 
Second, you are correct. It is probably not possible for people to consistently get a perfect count out of thin air. But it's a starting place, and you need a starting place, right?
 
Third, you are right, again, when you say that relative rates, i.e., comparisons, are the way to establish a temperament.
 
So no one is betting the farm on getting 120 beats in your head. We're just roughing in D4 then we're listening to A3-D4 and D4-A5, comparing F3-A3 to F3-D4, then A#3-D4  and then we're  ... uh, what was your point, again?
 
Congratulations on passing the tuning test! Hope to see you at National.
 
Alan R. Barnard
Smooth Sailin' in Salem, MO


-----Original Message----- 
From: Pianotunaguy@aol.com 
Sent: Mar 12, 2005 7:46 AM 
To: tune4u@earthlink.net 
Subject: Re: Question about Beats During Tuning 


In a message dated 3/12/05 4:05:24 AM, tune4u@earthlink.net (who didn't sign a name to his post) writes:



The very common march tempo of mm=120 will let you count 4 beats per metronome tick, which is 8bps, and it's easy to get that rate into your noodle storage space.



This is simply not true.  I conducted professional musical theater productions for 25 years before becoming a tuner.  For 20 years I set the tempi in my head for each song. (The goal being to play the same tempo every night.)  I was known for my accuracy and consistency here in Chicago.  Then, in the 1990s I became involved in computer sequencing of live shows.  At this point, I was CERTAIN that the tempi were the same night after night because the computer set the tempi.

Let me tell you: some nights that thing seemed    S  O       S   L   O   W  .   Other nights it seemed as if things were flying by.  I remember the dance captain coming to me at intermission once to ask, "Is it possible that the 'BlahBlah dance break' was fast tonight?"    No, it was digitally the same as last night.  It just SEEMED faster tonight.

So maybe I was better than most at setting those tempi in my head prior to the digital revolution (I'd like to think so), but I know now that I was not 100% accurate.  It's not humanly possible.

So to bet the farm on your ability to set 120 in your head is folly.  

Knowing that, as a tuner I have never tried to count beats in tempo.  I use comparison exclusively.  Yeah, the F3-A3 third is the starting point and you try to hit that as close as you can, but by then comparing the contiguous thirds F3-A3-C#4-F4 and making sure that you have a progression there you can get it even closer if you missed it in the first place.  

Even Virgil Smith has in his tuning sequence a quick check (using comparison) to make sure that his F3-A3 third is beating properly.  If all you had to do was memorize a tempo, why would Virgil Smith, certainly one of the greatest tuners of his generation, use comparison to check his beat speed on that opening F3-A3 third?

Trying to memorize beat speeds in your head is a waste of time in my opinion.  At the very least, I can guarantee that there are other ways to skin the cat.  My proof: I recently passed the RPT exam with all scores 93 or higher.  And I never ever try to count beats.  Ever.  I only compare.

Tom Sivak
Chicago Chapter PTG Associate