Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum Does a "Let the piano tell you" ET 5ths/4ths sequence exist?

Gadzar:

Sorry, it is unlikely that I will even try it. I do not like tuning with RBIs and do poorly at it. Nor do I have any recording equipment. But the sequence should work with any acoustical piano with an appropriate octave, just a little differently, but that is what checks and final checks are for.

Here is the sequence I use to tune ET. It is an all RBI sequence, but that is not relevant at all. The goal is not to avoid tuning SBIs but "letting the piano tell you" what the tempering of M3s, m3s, P4s and P5s must be in order to fit in the temperament octave.

Contiguous Major-minor Thirds Temperament.

Summary

1. A4<-Fork
2. A3<-A4
3. F3<-A3
4. F3->F4
5. A3->C#4
6. F3->G#3
7. G#3->G#4
8. D4<-F4
9. G#3->B3
10. F#3<-A3
11. F#3->F#4
12. A3->C4
13. C4->D#4
14. A#3<-C#4
15. G3<-A#3
16. G3->G4
17. C#4->E4

In this sequence there are no absolute figures to be tuned, but all the beat rates are self-established in a way that 3 CM3s and 4 Cm3s fit in the octave (build up the octave).

If anyone is interested, the details and checks of the sequence are given here:

Modern tuning theory from a mathematical perspective

I guess there is a sequence, but the piano does not tell you it only do its own thing to the less resistance path.

Gadzar,

With the outside-M6-inside-M3 test (e.g. playing C3-A3, then D3-F#3), what exactly do you listen for? Do you compare the beat rate of the M6 with that of the M3, and is the idea that they should be the same?

Mark,

Yes, the idea is to have almost the same beat rate in the M6 and M3. Theoretically the M6 should beat approximately 0.2 bps faster than the M3. But in practice this difference is barely noticeable. In the video this is not perceived anyway.

Here are the theoretical beat rates:

F3-D4/G3-B3 = 7.9/7.8 bps
F#3-D#4/G#3-C4 = 8.4/8.2 bps
G3-E4/A3-C#4 = 8.9/8.7 bps
G#3-F4/A#3-D4 = 9.4/9.2 bps
A3-F#4/B3-D#4 = 10.0/9.8 bps
A#3-G4/C4-E4 = 10.6/10.4 bps
B3- G#4/C#4-F4 = 11.2/11.0 bps
C4-A4/D4-F#4 = 11.9/11.7 bps

I guess BDB is not going to answer me.

So I invite all posters in this forum to comment on my video of the ET I just tuned in my piano.

My piano is a studio Petrof, P117K1, 46” tall (1.17 mtrs).

Please focus on the temperament evenness and the stretch of the tuning, I know some unisons are a bit off and piano needs voicing.

Equal Temperament

I am not a pianist but I play some easy pieces of music.

Here they are:

Behind the Waterfall & Desert Rain Medley, David Lanz

Pathetic Sonata, 2nd mvt., Beethoven

Moonlight Sonata, 1st mvt., Beethoven.

Gadzar:

You asked, otherwise I would not mention it. And since I am not your customer, my opinion does not mean anything.

The D3, F#3 and A#3 are all just a tad sharp, the F#3 more than the other two. Since these notes are all in the same set of CM3s it is hardly noticeable with the chromatic M3 test. But if you listen carefully to other tests it shows up, especially the 17th - 12th comparison. The M6 outside M3 inside tests were a little quick for me to lock into the beat rates.

Thanks Tooner.

Let's see:

C3 and C#3 are on the bass bridge. Wound bichords.

D3 is the first note on the treble bridge, it is also a wound bichord unison. D#3 is too a wound bichord.

Plain trichords start with E3. So it is the region where jumps in iH are to be expected and some compromises must be done. At that respect I always give priority to RBIs over SBIs.

After reading your comment I've checked these notes and there is a smooth uniform progression of M3s, and the fifth D3-A3 is indeed a little busy compared to its chromatic neighbours, but I guess I tuned it that way because I worked using M3s.

The other two notes F#3 and A#3 present almost the same problem: correct progression of M3s with not so clean SBIs.

You have a good ear! The quality of the recording is poor. In fact I hear many more things at the piano than are present in the video.

For the M6 inside M3 tests, yes, they were too quick. I didn't noticed that until I watched the video. At the piano the beat rates are much more discernible. It is as if the vibrations felt with our fingers were helping the ear.

If you really want to hear a tuning I did, you can try downloading files.me.com/bdboakland/17qdqz.mp3 . It is a very old recording, over 20 years old I think, not particularly well recorded, and the performers just stopped in to try out some music, so the tuning might have been kind of old. But it is a decent piece for demonstrating a temperament.

Interestingly enough, the piano, an 1896 or so Steinway A, which I hoped might end its days in some quiet home situation, is now in a recording studio, which means you may have heard it and my tuning without knowing what it is.

Good job Raphaêl ! I did not analyze why but the Ed 5th is larger, it reproduce afterthat in the basses.

I feel the tempering is better from F3 to F4 than in the lower octave where the progression of thirds raise a bit too fast.

Also may be I hear beats of high partials in the bass chords which tone well but I feel like if they could have more tonal value (probably more tight would be better ? , sorry if it does not make sense)

Recording the 17ths would tell

probably due to the recording but I like a bit more air in the tone but also octaves. All in all it is a very good job (I suppose in the recipe for tuning exam as PTG ask (?).

I'll post you privately.

Thanks for sharing I hope others will make comments as well.

If all tuners would tune at that precision level that would yet be nice !

voice a bit the C's (professionals pianists are ashamed it when I show them that the C of their pianos are more used than other notes !!)

Thanks so much,

Indeed the recording quality is not good but the unisons are tight , to me they are not open.

The pianists seem to enjoy the piano which is certainly good.

I cant say about justness but it is not chocking to me, only the tone, and unisons.

Sorry have no time to listen closely.

The Bach is nice !

Listening to a piano that was tuned 20 years ago should show how stable the tuning was!

Rafael, I cannot believe that people are picking apart certain intervals of your tuning as if that would really make a difference in how anyone would perceive music from a piano you tuned in ET. I abandoned tuning pianos in ET over 20 years ago, have tuned more than 20,000 pianos with intervals which differ substantially from ET each and every time, have collected my fees, paid my bills, earned my living and keep those customers year after year.

If intervals of a certain size were really a requirement, I think I would have heard something about that by now. Yet, I still have people on here telling me, warning me, in fact, that what I have done for the past 20 years cannot be done, will not work and would be rejected by any pianist or performing artist as soon as they touch the piano. Obviously, that is not true.

I would much rather hear the three pieces you offered in the EBVT III as you have learned to tune it. It would be thrilling to hear you play the long, C Major arpeggio across the piano so that we can all hear the "pipe organ" effect!

My own offerings are still in the works but will probably be delayed until the end of February now as Grandpianoman has not yet received the new damper tray that he needs for his piano. I'll make both sound files and You Tube videos.

Don't be afraid to do it, Rafael. You can expect that a few people on here will say the same things they've always said, that it sounds terrible, nobody ever asked them for that, ET only, etc. but you already know as I do where the real music comes from. My own opinion of the way the music sounded on your recordings is that ET ruined it. It took all of the life and expression that the music, as it was written away and left only intervals to listen to.

Why should we care what those who afraid to find where the true beauty of piano music is found try to tell us when we already know better than that and have experienced it time after time? You do not need to prove that you can tune ET. There is really only one reason that piano technicians try to suppress the exploration of any kind of tuning which they consider to be non-standard: it is the deep seated fear that they cannot do the same thing, don't want to learn anything new but some day will be asked to do it. All they can do is condemn such practices in hopes that no one will ever ask them to do something they don't know how to do and do not want to learn.

Bill,

Before the recording my piano was tuned to EBVT III, I tuned it in ET just to show BDB how I tune ET.

Now that it is detuned, I mean tuned in ET, I wonder if I can tune it in reverse well and make some tests.

And after showing the reverse well, retune it in EBVT III and record again the same 3 pieces, getting a way to compare the results. But, as I am a bad player, I'm afraid that would be not worth.

I'll have to find some free time, and a little courage, to make the tunings and recordings. It takes more than two hours to upload those videos in youtube.

Can someone tell me how can I do better quality recordings? What equipment do I need? At present I am using a video camera which produces .mpg files but I don't like the results, mainly the audio is horrible. And furthermore there is no need of the video, audio files suffice.

BDB, I've heard your file.

The piano sounds good. I can not distinguish a temperament by listening to a unique isolated piece without comparing it to another temperament. But I've found no disonances in the harmonies, I guess this means ET.

I am with Kamin, I don't know what he exaclty means by "tight" but I didn't like the sound of some unisons.

For the stretch I believe the bass matches perfectly the tenor and treble.

(Thanks Kamin, I am glad you think I did a good job, your opinion is very important to me as you are a very fine tuner.)

I don't understand what you say about "Ed 5th is larger", can you please explain more on this? What is Ed 5th? Maybe is there a typo?

Bill:

Gadzar asked for a critique: "Please focus on the temperament evenness and the stretch of the tuning..." And you use the replies as an excuse to go OT about unequal temperaments!

Tooner,

I've appreciated your observations: Critiques always give us the opportunity to learn something if we are open minded.

I also appreciated Bill’s observations. He commented on the tuning I did and on the results I’ve got. He focused more on the musical results than on the quality of intervals. I can also learn a lot from this.

Gadzar:

Yes, you're right. Kumbya...

I did not have time to listen closely, I'll try later. The Eb Bb 5th is larger probably, I find the Eb out of range a tiny little and find the same in the bass so I traced it to the temperament.

as you stated wound wire..


But You may listen to 5ths they are the musician interval by excellence, as said before we in any case have to check all intervals, at a moment or another (better then in the temperament zone, indeed).