They can all be teaching moments...


Well, there are actually many ways to "place those stones" to make sure that the octaves (play that C-C octave) come out right. Like a stream with a really deep spot, you might need to jump a little farther in the middle to get across. It's our job to find out how each piano and owner like to get those stones set to help them enjoy playing the piano. Do you play? When I'm done, if you'd like, I'd be happy to listen to you play a short piece. I better get back to work now, you can watch if you stay very quiet!

Ron Koval

And then the fifth grader replies:

"Great! Thanks mister! Wait 'till I tell my band teacher that I'm not out-of-tune, I just place my notes where I like 'em. Our piano tuner calls it tamperin'. Don't bother me none if the guy next to me does the same."

"Well you know that a piano is a little different than your band instrument, you've got to use your lips and listen to everyone else to adjust your pitch with every note, the piano can't adjust while you play. Can you think of any other instruments that are like that? Marimba? Organ? Good! Now unless you want to pay me to teach you, I've really got to get this piano done!"

Ron Koval

The piano CAN adjust while you play...

"Mister, I may only be a fifth grader, but I know when someone is trying to blow me off. My best buddy Lumpy plays the marimba in the band, and it can't be tuned! Are you trying to tell me YOU can tune a piano differently than the marimba and call it in-tune, but I CAN'T play my trumpet different than the marimba and call it in-tune? Heck, maybe you're just tuning our piano the quickest way you can and just pretending it is in-tune. Hey, Mom this guy is trying to cheat us..."

Lumpy plays marimba? Have him show you the bottom of the bars sometime to see where the marimba tuner had to carve out the wood. That's why he is supposed to use special mallets for the marimba instead of drumsticks, because he could change the tuning and the band director would have send it out to get tuned again! I bet Lumpy would get in a lot of trouble for that!... probably like you if you dropped your trumpet and the valves wouldn't work anymore. Are you careful to pay attention when you put your trumpet away and clean it out like your teacher told you? I bet I would get in trouble if I wasn't paying attention to my work and messed up something in your mom's piano!



Ron Koval

The questions of the fifth grader must have been tempered by his buck teeth. But it all changes if it is a little girl? New parameters added. Still cyclical. Daddy, why is the sky blue?

There are so many reasons as to why it appears as blue. It is blue because he was taught that what he was seeing is called blue.

For us who grew up as musicians, something is in tune because we have been taught that what we are hearing is called in tune.

For tuners, it seems to me, you delve into the whys and wherefores and that is certainly appropriate and expected in your profession. These discussions, even though they can get raw, keep you skilled in your trade. Most musicians simply accept "in tune" as based on their first answer to the first naive question.

Why is the sky blue? Because it is. Why is the piano in tune? Because it is. The understanding of what leads to "is" is lifelong study in any profession, even playing piano.

Daddy, why is that Debussy pretty. Because it is.

When the hand of God touches the mind of a Brahms, or of a Mahler, we will never be able to answer why the music is beautiful. Sometimes because it is, is enough.

The sky is in tune. The piano is blue.

I keep tellin' you guys, "in-tune" is whatever *I* sing, and whenever *I* sing it...

Ahhh, subjectivity, what a wonderful word. As Dictionary.com says..."internal reality".

"You don't think every fifth grader knows that they get blamed whenever you grown-ups mess up? Like at Sunday dinner, Grampy lets one fly and I get blamed! No, if you mess up the tamperin' its because you didn't know what you were doin'. I ain't got nuthin' to do with it!"

Well, I won't blame you if I have to toot!

(laughing, turning back to tuning)

Ron Koval

just make sure the beat rates progress evenly

That's very interesting Bill.
I'm going to try that with my guitars.
Since I bought my grand I've hardly even touched my 12 string and six string acoustic guitars but I'm going to try that slight adjustment with their tuning to see how it sits.
Since with my last piano tuning I've switched to EBVT3 I'm more open to experiment with tuning changes that I've never even considered before just for interests sake so I might as well apply this to my guitars, especially since I don't have to pay a tuner to do it for me.
Thanks Bill.

Rob, to get a reading of the fundamental on an ETD, the number designation for the octaves should be one higher than shown in that offset chart. The lowest E string should be E3...not E2, ect...

Sparky,

You may or may not be able to replicate this with a common guitar tuner. Most of those have a mark for every 5 cents. I use an ETD that is programmable to within 0.1 cents. Furthermore, I read the pitches all on octave 4, so that means that E2 and A2 are read on the 4th partial, D3, G3 and B3 are read on the 2nd partial and E4 is read on the fundamental (1st partial). All of that would be pretty much hit or miss with a common guitar tuner.

Or to tune aurally, you can get similar results by tuning E/E a hair wide and each 4th at about 1 bps wide. The resulting G-B M3 should beat a little slower than the theoretical 8bps, more like 6-7bps. Most guitar players keep away from the remote keys.

Your sig block suggests that you are not a very clear thinker. So I'm discounting your wrongheaded ideas about ET. Thanks for playing, though.

I guess that means that your sig block suggests you don't think at all.

Sorry, couldn't resist. With a name like SirHuddlestonFud, I'm sure you do.

I don't know what Ron would say but my answer could very well be:

When the stones are equally spaced, things look right uniform. And when the notes are equally spaced the piano is in-tune uniformly tempered (out of tune).

The existence of the comma makes impossible for a piano to be in-tune, not to speak about iH which makes impossible to have an "in-tune" octave in a piano.

If we take into account these two facts, comma and iH, then there are no more equally spaced notes through the piano's scale. And that is not an issue at all, what is relevant is the music we can make with the piano.

In that sense, if the piano sounds like the musician expects it to sound then we can say the piano is in-tune, regardless of the distribution of the comma and the way iH is treated in that piano.

For a greek musician, 4000 years ago, ET would sound out of tune as much as for a modern composer a pithagorean tuning would sound out of tune and would be unusable.



It is really a shame that a professional piano tuner can think like this.

This same piano tuner once said in this very forum that he doesn´t like to tune pianos, I wonder why he clings to tune pianos.

Man has made music from the very dawning of our species, thousands of years, and he has used and uses today thousands of tuning systems.

Nowadays there is Occidental, Chinesse, Indian, Arabic music, etc., that uses hundreds of tuning systems other than ET.

And here we have this deaf-minded, self proclaimed piano tuner, saying that if it is not in ET then it is out of tune!

This is really unacceptable in a specialized piano-tech's Forum like this one!

I tune pianos because my customers want their pianos to sound in-tune. ET accomplishes it.

Of course pianists want their pianos to be tuned, but that is not a reason for you to tune them, especially if you don't like to tune them! You can leave this "anoying" work to folks like me, who love to tune and love pianos and love music!

ET accomplishes their need of tuning, that's right. But ET is not the only and unique temperament which accomplishes that. ET is only one among hundreds of other ways to correctly tune pianos.

Rafael:

If you give it a moment of thought, I am sure that you will be able to think of many things that you do not like to do, but do anyway. That is something we have in common.

Something that we do not have in common is believing a piano can be in-tune. It seems bizarre to me to declare that a piano cannot be in-tune, and then to go tune it! Well, maybe not bizarre if you also believe that a piano can be tuned any-which-way...

Well,
25 pages of debate….A subjective phrase such as “in-tune” which can mean something different to almost every person, and that is the simple reality.

The phrase “in-tune” will mean a different mathematical sequence for a chamber music player than it would for a rock guitarist and so on…..
Really when referring to “in-tune” for most it is a reference to the music....is the instrument in-tune with what is being played?

Dan:

It is clear from the OP and later posts that we are talking about pianos being in-tune. I do not think in-tune is a subjective when it comes to pianos. It all has to do with a piano being in-tune with itself. I do not see how deliberately varying the width of intervals can result in a piano being in-tune with itself.

Does this mean that you don't apply any stretch whilst tuning? This is the only way that all intervals could have the same width, surely?

Is this not what we obtain when tuning with different temperament sequences? I believe your focus is too narrow to ET in the belief that those particular intervals are considered “in-tune”.

It is just that someone else may not have the opinion that those particular intervals as being “in-tune” for them.

I tune with pure 12ths and any change in the other intervals is not deliberate, it is natural. But what I do isn't important. What those that deliberately tune various width intervals, in order to obtain a UT, is a different thing altogether.

I agree that different ET sequences can result in slightly different tunings, especially when made near or across a break. But the difference is not deliberate. It is an artifact.

But you mention "particular intervals." If these "particular intervals" are deliberately tuned to different widths in order to produce a UT, then how could the piano to be in-tune with itself?

Well Jeff,

In theory no piano is in tune with itself. They are in tune with the application to be used on that piano. If the application requires a Victorian or some other type of early music temperament then that would be considered in-tune with itself.

As technicians we know that a piano is deliberately tuned out of tune, out of pure so to speak...so all the keys sound good.

Expand this a little; what was considered in-tune 200 years ago. It certainly wasn’t ET. But the pianos of the day were considered “in-tune”

They were considered in-tune for the application applied.

Times change. So does the knowledge of certain things as we evolve...

"Times change. So does the knowledge of certain things as we evolve..."

Yes! And isn't that waht happened with the evolution of temperments? What was in-tune then is not what is in-tune today. And for good reason, too!