Hi Gregor
It was precisely the same approach below that led to my own failure to
pass my first tuning tests. You seem to imply that it is a negative
thing to deal with the academic side of our discipline. I would take the
greatest exception to that if so. The benefit of being aware and using
consciously coincident partials is to be able to converse intelligently
with others and with your self about what exactly you are attempting to
accomplish. It does no real good to use vague expressions like <<make it
sound good>>
I have no doubt that you learned to listen for certain beat rates in
testing intervals as a very central part of your training. The
vocabulary and academics behind interval types, ie 4:2, 6:3 octaves,
3:1, 6:3 twelfths, 4:1, 8:2 double octaves etc etc are very central to
what you were listening too. Finishing off a fine tuning by listening
holistically is good practice in anycase... but certainly no reason for
attempting to simply tune that way from the get go and most certainly no
reason for advising others to set aside the intellectual side of what we do.
No good tuner I know of simply slavishly aligns any particular pair of
coincidents to begin with. That piece of knowledge is also one of those
bits you pick up from the academic side. Coincident partials are tools
we use, and the more conscious we are about what they are and how to use
them the better a tuner you will be... no matter which way you go about
things.
Cheers
RicB
Great idea. The whole discussions seems a little bit theoretical and
abstract.
When I joined this list a few years ago I read the first time about
ETD´s. In this context I heard the first time about 4:2, 6:3 or
whatsoever octaves. Of course I knew what was meant but I never
thought about it before. I learned all the tuning theory during my
training, but I never strived for a particular octave such as 4:2 or
any other. I just wanted to let it sound good. I remember that I
first had a hard time to decide on which beats of an octave I should
listen. I heard so much ringing, beating and overtones that I was
completely confused. My goal was to cut the knot and bring some calm
in the restlessness, but I did it with my ears and not with the
intellectual capacity of my academic brain. In hindsight I can say
that was a good because holistic approach.
When you focus on a particular partial matching you risk that you
neglect other partial pairs. Once you started to focus on a pair
your brain will quickly adapt and filters out the rest. I became
aware of it since I have an apprentice now. She is new to tuning and
has the same hassle that I had with hearing overtones. She showed me
what she was hearing and I was stunned because I did not hear it
first. But after hearing it once I could not stop for a while,
because I was so focused on her perception. My brain had completely
filtered out what she was hearing before she told me.
Sometimes some partials are louder than others and this
constellation is not consistent over the whole piano, sometimes even
not within an unison. What works for e.g. A3-A4 may be wrong for
G3-G4. So, a holistic approach might be better than single partial
matching. Tuning an interval always means finding the best possible
compromise. Therefore, just let it sound good and don´t care too
much about the math.
Gregor
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC