[pianotech] CTE's - what are you thoughts? (continuation of Re: Old can of worms)

[David Love]

I don't think so.  My understanding is that a master tuning is set initially
with an electronic device attempting to following fairly well defined
temperament and octave guidelines.  It is then gone over and tweaked if
corrections are necessary to create a master tuning.  During the exam, notes
that fall outside of the acceptable range of variability are deducted and
may be challenged by the examinee.  The criteria are not simply whether or
not the examinee finds the note "pleasing".  At least I would hope not.
Otherwise what's the point.  If it's an octave that is out then aural checks
are done to verify.  If it's the temperament that's out then the examinee
cannot argue that they think the temperament octave sounds pleasing enough
to them. 

While one can more easily argue the validity of the octave test, even though
the type of octaves people use in real life often do not mimic the octaves
that are called for by the test and the setting of the master tuning, when
it comes to temperaments I think it's much trickier. A pleasing temperament
can vary widely as we've seen in many discussions about equal versus non
equal temperaments.  Yet the temperament is one of the least forgiving parts
of the test in terms of scoring.  The only part that is less forgiving is
the setting of the reference note which in itself.

The fact that you argue that there is a subjective "pleasing" factor the
comes into play in the minds of the examiners suggests even more to me that
there is a problem with the test at least the parts that have a more
subjective component.  I would still contend that the current state of
technology argues in favor of allowing the use of ETDs for the temperament
and octave part of the test.  Aural unison testing and stability (ironically
which is measured electronically) to me are still valid in the current
procedure.  In fact, one could argue that even more stringent unison and
stability standards would be a greater indicator of the real world skills
needed to pass yourself off as a competent tuner.  

I do agree with the point you made on another post, "Aural tuners have much
to learn from negotiating with a tuning program. Machine tuners have much to
learn from negotiating aural skill sets."  Perhaps we should consider that
those who take the test aurally should have to pass a machine tuning
competency test as well.  


David Love
www.davidlovepianos.com


-----Original Message-----
From: David Renaud [mailto:drjazzca at gmail.com] 
Sent: Saturday, May 12, 2012 1:01 PM
To: davidlovepianos at comcast.net; pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [pianotech] CTE's - what are you thoughts? (continuation of Re:
Old can of worms)

Actually, your wrong, yes it is scored with aural criteria, are the
intervals"pleasing" aurally, 
Or do they offend. 

Here is how it works.

The scoring computer program "earmarks" notes outside parameters, That may
of may not become Deductions.  Only one of the 3 examiners know what the
computer scoring program says. The other 2 people on the examination team do
not have a clue what the computer scoring program says.  The one examiner
that knows where the earmarked notes are will request particular notes at
his discretion to be aurally checked. The others do not know if it is a good
note, bad note, flat or sharp, no clue. They check the note carefully with
purely aural checks. 
They must determine on their own if it is flat, sharp, or good. The
candidate can defend where he put the note. The other two examiners must
agree it is flat, or that it is sharp, and agree with the computer program
correctly or the deduction is thrown out. 

       So notes that are outside parameters, but are "pleasing" , balancing
intervals well, can and are often thrown out. Bad notes are verified aurally
in a blind test. Pleasing notes can brown out, and not become deductions.

      Smart test. Good exercise.
      Bad notes are proven in this blind aural testing for "pleasing
balanced intervals"

                                               Dave Renaud
                                                  
                                






Sent from my iPad

On 2012-05-12, at 3:26 PM, "David Love" <davidlovepianos at comcast.net> wrote:

> Except that the exam is not scored on "pleasing". It is scored on
objective criteria the foundations of which are laid down electronically. If
pleasing were the criteria for passing the exam then we would expect to see
no deductions for musical sounding well temperaments or octave stretching
which exceeds the exam protocols which many will say are much more
conservative than they use in real life. 
> ------Original Message------
> From: Mark Dierauf