Hey, David Nereson----
Thanks for the feedback; I'll just touch on what I think to be the major
misunderstandings; I'm open to the possibility that my article wasn't as
clear as it could have been, or that someone---perhaps like you---with a
scientific/engineering bent would seem to dismiss it as too colloquial and
"unproveable."
>"Cracking" a unison sounds to me like nothing different from tuning a
>truly beatless unison
No; it specifically and clearly refers to the practice of making microtonal
changes in the PITCH of a 3-string unison. Truly beatless unisons are
necessary in every tuning, in my practice. Pitch stabilization is very
important, as are stood-still unisons, on a Baldwin Acrosonic or a Fazioli
concert grand.
>Under "A Few Helpful Hints," you say the "true beat" doesn't appear for
>3-5 seconds after the two notes are played, especially in the fourths.
In my experience, especially in the lower half of the piano, the
inharmonicity, "garbage tones," ghost tones, whatever, sometimes obscure the
slow beat of the fourth when the two notes are played. The word "true"
doesn't have any voodoo or esoteric meaning---the true beat as opposed to
false beats. OK?
>But two paragraphs hence, you say the fourths all beat at 1.5 - 2.5 bps!
Yes. In my system, which is assuredly equal temperament, the fourths beat a
bit faster than in most other systems, but the progression of thirds and
sixths is close to ideal every time. That's part of the beauty and utility
of this system. Making that "ladder of fourths" in the article all beat at
RELATIVELY the same beat speed, almost always somewhere between 1.5 and 2.5
bps, will give you ideally articulated, progressively faster thirds and
sixths; all the classic temperament checks work out very, very precisely
with my system.
>If they're beating that fast, how can it take 3 - 5 seconds for the
>("true," whatever that is) beat to appear?
See above.
>I assume we're tuning equal temperament, in which case
>fourths in the temperament area beat at about 1 bps.
With all due respect, sez who? I'd love to know where you got that.
Interesting statement.
>2.5 bps for a fourth would be quite noticeable, I would think.
David, I wish you could sit next to me while I tune a piano; all the
theoretical and un-understandable would become practically apparent to you.
That's why, in the article, I say "faster than you may think would be
right." We need to challenge our long-held assumptions every so often.
>But with all three
>strings open (which, in the end, when doing a final check, is how we
>would listen to the piano anyhow), you say the beats slow down a bit. I
>don't agree that having the unisons tuned will slow down the beat of the
>interval! Do they actually slow down or just seem to?
Great question...they just seem to; I don't pretend to understand the
science involved, I just experience the practical reality when I tune.
When all three strings of two notes are "stood still," made beatless, the
beat of the fourth SEEMS to slow down, or have the hard edges taken off it
somehow; it blends more; I call it a psychoacoustic illusion. On the other
hand, weirdly, when there's stood-still unisons and you play a major third,
the beats SEEM to be slightly faster. Again, no attempt at explanation from
me, just reporting a phenomenon I experience every day.
>The terms you use to describe widths of intervals, such as: swellingly
>beatless, almost beatless, very slightly narrowed, a tiny bit, a frog
>hair, slightly, a hair, a little, ever-so-slightly more, quite a bit
>more, slow roll, a bit, slower than, just a bit, super fast, and
>slightly narrow, are all too subjective to actually use in precisely
>setting a temperament, in my opinion.
Again, my attempt at being a bit out of the box. I could say .10 cents, or
.50 cents, but the tempering is truly different for every piano, as you say.
Remember: tuning is a BODY experience, a whole system experience, not just a
cerebral one. I'm trying to inspire people to remember that, and this is an
attempt. All this would be SO much easier to show rather than tell.
>Without defining what these means
>in terms of beats per second, temperaments tuned with these guidelines
>by several different tuners probably would all come out differently.
I disagree...I follow up on some of the best tuners in the world---IMO--
here in LA: Keith Albright, Richard Davenport, Ron Elliott. All of our
tunings sound, within incredibly precise parameters, pretty much the same;
the only differences I can consistently perceive is the slightly, and I mean
slightly different stretches we use at the top and bottom of the piano,on
the notes at the bottom of the treble bridge, and sometimes the quality and
consistency of the unisons in the high treble. Ideal equal temperament is
ideal equal temperament. Tuners who make a piano sound radically better
than it did when they started get all the good work; this has been true as I
know it in the piano world forever, and certainly in my personal experience
for 32 years.
>Then in the third-to-last paragraph, you say, "If all the fourths on the
>piano are beating the same slow roll, then the stretch will be exactly
>on the money out to the extremes."
>I really don't believe this is true,
>and certainly not for all pianos.
Well, we'll have to agree to disagree, like civilized men. "Exactly on the
money" means, to me, that the tuning sounds soaring, and musical, and like a
recording; it means that to my ears, a triple or quadruple octave sounds
beatless, the bottom of the piano sounds deep, warm, and resonant. It sounds
great to me, and that means it sounds great to my clients, many of whom are
recording studios and professional piano players. A tuning like this, made
precisely repeatable, as my system enables one to do, guarantees the success
of a piano tuner. I'm just trying to help more tuners get into the high end
of the business, where all the money and security is. Really.
>The beat speeds of fourths and most
>other intervals increase slightly as one ascends the scale in a piano
>tuned to equal temperament.
Again, not my experience tuning 500-600 times a year for the last 32 years.
The beat speed of the fourths stays constant from one end of the piano to
the other in a precise ET tuning. Virgil has stated this for decades.
>And is there really such a thing as the
>stretch being "exactly on the money"? Different degrees of inharmonicity
>in different pianos require different amounts of stretch.
Exactly my point throughout this reply. These are custom tunings, based on
the individual characteristics of each piano. Hence the subjective or
colloquial descriptions of the minute distance changes between notes, i.e.,
"swellingly beatless."
>As someone else replied, :
>Do you really think this is equal temperament? <g> "I have found that
>A3-D4 and C4-F4 beat slightly faster." If that's so, how can the thirds
>and sixths progress evenly? A jocular quibble of little consequence.
>Of more than a little consequence, in my opinion.
Again, I'm not an engineer or mathematician; I'm a working pianotech,
and I'm reporting on what I have found over my years of working in the high
end. Come and hear me tune, and you will see & hear that what I say is, in
my tuning, true. Slightly means slightly, and I qualify it by saying, I
think, "in most pianos," or something like that.
David, I'm glad you respect Virgil and his work. He is a hero of mine for
many reasons. Respect, in my world, means an openness to another's deeply
held beliefs, and a relative suspension of the hardness or rightness of your
position to really, seriously consider another's point of view. The essence
of Virgil's message has always been, it seems to me, that one's ears, one's
"body perception" of sound, is something to trust, believe in, and
incorporate into your tuning.
There is a time to trust your logical, left brain, and there is a time to
trust your ears and your whole body. That's why articles about either
playing or working on pianos are ultimately limited---it's a kinesthetic
experience that can't be delineated or captured fully in words.
I hope we get to spend some time together in front of a piano; perhaps then
experience would replace belief.
My best to you---
David Andersen
Malibu, CA
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