[pianotech] Stretch in tuning

[David Boyce]

Those are eminently interesting observations Ron!  I especially like 
your conclusion: "The closer I get to understanding how all this works, 
however, the more I realize that pianos aren't entirely tunable".  
Another of your "bons mots" was "No tuning is ever finished, just left 
behind", which you modestly credited to someone else.

I stand by my own definition of tuning:  Part arithmetic and part 
flower-arranging.

I too have often come across pianos with the top notes more than a 
quarter tone sharp. And I have never felt that it's been because the 
rest of the compass went flat and the top notes didn't!  I can't think 
that it really sounded nice when the tuner had just finished.

I've never attempted to use an ETD for the whole compass. I use it for 
the temperament, and maybe if I am struggling with a "killer octave" 
(but generally I think I manage that by ear). Like you, I thought in 
early days that inharmonicity would ensure that tuning octaves beatless 
meant the right stretch automatically.  But nothing is ever simple!

The Steinway guy's octave with eight beats per second at C7 is certainly 
interesting. It might sound nice aqnd bright at the end of an arpeggio, 
but I can't think that high chords would've been easy on the ear.

Best regards,

David.

> This confused me for some time. Didn't the inharmonicity of piano 
> strings guarantee a pure sounding octave was stretched? One out of 
> state expert who came in to replace a set of hammers on one of the 
> university's Steinways (gotta have a Steinway expert, you know) even 
> carefully explained to me how he "started stretching" octaves at the 
> beginning of the capo section, and went up to about eight beats per 
> second in the octave at c-7/8! I heard that tuning, and wasn't awfully 
> convinced, nor was I awfully convinced by the tunings I followed that 
> were flat through octave 5-6, and were nearly a semitone sharp at c-8. 
> I never had anything resembling decent tuning instruction, so it took 
> me some time to piece a sensible picture together from what I heard 
> from others, read, and found in others' tunings. Learning something 
> about more meaningful interval tests (piecemeal) from better educated 
> aural tuners finally cleared up a lot of misinformation and the 
> process became a lot more sensible to me. The closer I get to 
> understanding how all this works, however, the more I realize that 
> pianos aren't entirely tunable.
> Ron N 

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