I had a most enlightening weekend. There was a local jazzfestival in town, and I tuned one of the Yamaha U3 for the friday/saturday gigs.

The other U3 in a jazz pub downstairs in the same building was tuned three weeks ago by a great tuner that has been one of my mentors during my learning of the basics. Not following my work in that sense, but he's never been a phone call or email from helping me out.

Now, the piano he tuned gave me some really valuable insights.

First, it gave me a hint to a possible solution to a problem I'm facing almost every time in the bass. I noticed that his tuning has a much wider octave than mine, "diving fast" downwards from his temperament section.

I have tried to stick to 6:3 octaves as suggested by several experienced tuners, but find myself getting a more shallow bass that has a hard time supporting the chords in the tenor area. His used wide octaves and didn't narrow them down before just around where the single coiled strings started. That gave a beautiful resonance to the chords, supporting the harmony in a rich way.

Secondly, i noticed that he uses a suprisingly wide temperament octave, and keep that strech going upwards into the treble. That means that the 5ths are less tempered than mine, almost pure, and that the thirds are higher than I ever would dare make them.

This all sounded wonderful during diathonic, triad-based music, especially the arpeggios seem to sparkle. BUT for this particular use, that is in a jazz gig, my upper-end tuning worked better. The twangy 4ths (as a side-result of the very clean 5ths) made the jazzvoicings sound almost like if the sound engineer used the good old "chorus" effect on the piano channels. Sweet, but unfocused and without much energy in them.

As I said earlier, this was really an eye-opener for me. I want to ask you experienced tuners out there - do you adjust your stretching philosophy somewhat for the characteristics of the music that will be performed, or do you go for your own taste of tuning every single time you tune for, in particular, concerts?

I tend to stretch for the piano, the room, and the music. If the piano is going to be played along with a bass guitar then too much stretch in the piano's bass could conflict with the bass guitar. Therefore I would tend to go for a more conservative stretch when the pianist will be playing with accompaniment.

If the room is big and ambient then more stretch tends to make the piano sound better IMO. If the piano is jammed in the corner of a little dead sounding room then music tends to sound better with less stretch in the tuning.

I always like to stretch the treble more...and bass for that matter when the music being played is solo piano music.

There is no telling what sort of music might be played a week after tuning, so I try to just make the piano sound in tune with itself.

In the single bass strings I strive for a 12:3 double octave. The m10 would beat the same as the M6. (This also double-checks the low temperament.) The upper singles are not tuned this wide, but the lowest ones are.

In the temperament, it depends on what the octaves will allow. I have been listening to how the fourths and fifths beat within the temperment octaves, make compromises between them and the octave, and continue the compromises going up the scale. Both the 4ths and 5ths will beat faster, although not doubling in speed each octave. But if listening carefully, there is a point where they can both beat slower. I didn’t believe this was true for a while but now do. It is at this point that decisions can be made as to the stretch for the rest of the treble.

Byron and Jeff:

Thanks for your inputs!

But do you agree that the choices made in the mid-range (C3-C5) can be very different according to the tuner's taste, that is even if two different tuners tune to the instrument, the room or the music, they could easily come up with very different tunings?

The easiest way I can define the difference is wether you give priority to as clean 5ths as possible, or try to balance the 5ths and 4ths, accepting more tempered 5ths. This of course reflects back at the octave, but if we assume that the octave sounds ok (that is, no unbearable roll) with both choices?

I'm really getting interested in this crucial area of the piano. The simple reason is that I'm finally getting good enough to have several different choices, not only struggling with getting any kind of tuning done that's not objectionable

I also believe that what you do in those 2 octaves very much leads you through the high and the low end of the piano.

pppat:

Well yes, a wider octave will have smoother fifths and faster fourths. But this only indicates if one octave is wider than another (on the same notes on the same piano.) In addition, you may be able to discern a “color” to an octave to better define the octave within the range of being perceptibly beatless.

Likewise, the double octave can have a “color” within its range of sounding beatless. Listening to 12ths can be very important for double octaves as listening to fifths are for single octaves. Also, there are tests for 4:1 and 8:2 double octaves.

Jeff,

which test do you use for 4:1?

M3-M17. The M3 is a 5:4 partial match, the M17 is a 5:1 partial match. The difference in beat speeds is the beat speed of the 4:1 double octave partial match. Btw, this test is useful much higher in the scale than it would seem possible. Wide intervals take more than an octave to double in beat rate, even more and more so as you go up the scale.