to mute or not to mute?

[John Formsma]

On Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 2:22 PM, Steve Blasyak <atuneforyou at hotmail.com>
wrote:

>
> Now I understand the stability statements and agree. I just don't
> understand what difference it makes if you use a felt strip of a rubber
> mute.
>

Steve, I'm glad to hear that you're tuning unisons as as you go. If you keep
this up, you will really see the difference in your tunings.

With a felt strip, you sometimes have noticeable sound bleed through.  You
can really notice this if you are raising the pitch, and the middle string
is different than the outer strings. The sound will come through the felt
strip. But you don't have that with felt mutes.

Another thought has come to mind while reading these various posts. What
> about those of us who tune aurally. Are you constantly changing the split
> mutes from one interval to another? Octaves fourths fifths and so on? What's
> the harm in strip muting two octaves to get your temperament set.
>

Strip muting can be faster. But to answer your question, yes, I do change
the mutes around as needed. It doesn't matter which interval that I need to
listen to. But I did change the temperament sequence somewhat, in order to
move the mutes less.
The neat thing about working with felt mutes is that you can work with any
string at any time. You don't have to always refer back to the middle
string, like you do with the felt strip. The hard thing about working with
unisons as you go is that it adds difficulty when you are tuning aurally.
 You have to have near-perfect to perfect unisons, and a stable hammer
technique.

It can be frustrating at times, but if you set your mind to it, it is really
worth it.

-- 
JF
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