Which do you use right ear and left ear on tuning ?
Of course I always use left ear at tuning and voicing!
What do you think?

Its hard not to use both ears unless you have a really good earplug to block one out.
Its long been known that the left side of the brain proccesses quickly changing tones such as speech, and the right side processes longer tones such as whats heard in music. Since the ears are cross connected, I would assume that if your tuning, most of the useful information is coming into the left ear, whether you want it to, or not.

A person with hearing impairment in the left ear may be handicapped to some degree in tuning, unless the brain and other ear somehow adapts, which might be possible.

I do not, and probably cannot, listen with only one ear. There are times when I can see with only one eye (ignoring what the other eye sees), but I don't think ears work that way. At least mine do not.

Binaural.

I find myself turning my head back and forth a lot trying to take in what both ears are picking up.

I do that too - turning my head to kind of focus the sound. However, it feels like my left ear is doing most of the work...

Left ear bass, right ear treble??

I use my whole body.

I recall using my left ear with more ease, but I thought it was because tuning makes the other more tired..

Now I tune less often, I dont feel so much the need to turn my head to hear better some notes , but it seem to make sense

Anyway I don't use my ears but my eyes I can see the sound

As said Ady I believe the left ear is what helps to get the opening of tone sensation, may be because it catch the return of tone better (?)

Hi Kamin! How have you been?
I think so too.
then I can't see the sound yet.

I'm not following this. How do you not hear with both ears?

Agreed - I take in vibrations though my knee, thigh, elbows, and chest, as they contact the piano as I tune. I hug the piano, and it becomes part of me, especially when I tune by ear. When using an ETD only, I'm more disconnected.

I do turn my head and search on difficult notes.

Ahhh! Someone else had my reaction. I'm not able to turn one ear off, and the other one on. 'Not sure I'd want to anyway. I just LOVE that stereo effect!

The consensus here seems that the left ear is more efficient at processing what we need to hear. My normal angle at the piano favours my right ear so I made an effort this morning to turn my head to favour the left ear and I realised that I do this a lot without thinking.

My wife complains I don't listen. She must be speaking into my right ear.

This reminds me of a scene from Miss Firecracker

DELMOUNT. Hello

POPEYE. Hi. Are you – You’re –

DELMOUNT. Delmount Williams. I’m Carnelle’s cousin

POPEYE. Yeah.

DELMOUNT. Well, I don’t know where Carnelle is right now.

POPEYE. Oh.

DELMOUNT. You’re a friend of hers, I suppose?

POPEYE. Yes I just met her recently. I’m Popeye Jackson.

DELMOUNT. Popeye? That’s an unusual name.

POPEYE. Oh. Well… It’s not my original name. I wasn’t born with it. (Embarrassed she begins to run on.) See, what happened was my brother Lucky, he threw a handful a gravel in my eyes and they started stinging and then he give me this brown bottle a drops t’put inside my eyes and telling me it’s eye drops but, in fact, it’s drops for the ears and then this burning sensation come into my eyes, causing me t’scream out and cry like the devil and after that I got me a pair a glasses and my eyes was bulged out a bit; so folks was calling me, Popeye and the name just stuck with me – Popeye. That’s how I got the name.

DELMOUNT. (After a moment.) Well, that’s a mighty tragic tale.

POPEYE. Ah. No. Actually the fortunate part is I can now hear voices through my eyes.

DELMOUNT. Through your eyes.

POPEYE. Yeah. Well, now and then I hear em – laughing and – carrying on.

DELMOUNT. Yeah. Well, I think I’ll see if I can rustle up Carnelle for you. Carnelle! Honey! Are you home?! Carnelle! Carnelle!

My wife doesn't listen at all. I don't think she even has ears!

Jerry, I'd bet that if you drove two miles down the road, and whispered, "Honey, lets take a trip to Cancun" into a pillow, she'd come running, and say "OK!".

I think it's not so much that we're saying something, but it's WHAT we say.

hahahaha! David, I do believe you're right!!! She has selective hearing!!!

We're joking back and forth texting right now.. I just said "OK BOSS LADY SIR!!!" She said, DON'T YOU EVER FORGET IT EITHER!" haha!

Regarding ears.. Both ears listen. We cannot turn off one, over the other but, it is imperative to turn our heads while tuning so that we can hear better. There are many times that if we did NOT turn our heads just a tad, we could have missed something important because of the angle our heads just happened to be at that given moment in time.

I find I do that, too, especially as I go up the scale. Instead of "holding my mouth just right," it's 'holding my head just right.'

I assumed I needed to do that because of my tinnitus. It's a relief to 'hear' I'm not alone!

I always turn my head when something important walks by...oh right the tuning thingy

No wonder my wife doesn't listen to me Dan!

I'm an ETD tuner, I don't use my ears. LOL!

I tune by ear, so I have to decide which ear holds the hammer and which one hits the keys. (There. I resisted posting this bit of nonsense for quite some time for fear of somehow looking undignified. As you can see, my dignity has evaporated in one sentence.)

LOVE IT!!!

What dignity??? haha

Yea, You're right Jerry. Oh well ...

What is this "dignity," of which you speak?

I know why my wife stopped listening to me. Maybe I should just stop telling her that it's all "women's work?" hehehe.

For husbands, it's really a mental health issue. It is critical that we have two ears. Without the one for an entrance and the other for exit, all those honey-dos would be trapped.

Ha ha! 'Great!

hahaha I love it!!!

I'm told that much of our perception depends on which nostril we happen to be predominantly breathing through. Always one nostril or the other seems to be blocked or partially blocked. Aparently this alternates nostrils every 4 hours.

Reminds me of a 1950's goon show line; "my eyes arent what they used to be.... ...they used to be my ears".

Man who thought his wife was going deaf .. On advice of a friend decided to test her. While she was facing away from him doing the dishes (it must have been her turn) he stood at the oposite side of the room and asked her what was for dinner..... No reply so he moves to the centre of the room and asks the same question. Again, he heard no reply. Finally he asked the same question standing right behind her and she replied; " I've told you three times, it's chicken"

Gee, I thought I'd get some smart remarks abouto my "it's womens work comment." hehe, was hoping for it. I used to tease my mother in law about that and oohhhh boy, I really got her good for a while till she figured out I was only kidding but, it's still fun to do!

My wife's dad had the same problem but, his hearing really did suck. He would start into a conversation with someone thinking her heard them say something when in fact, what was said had nothing to do with what he started talking about. He always pretended like he knew what was going on or being said and never wore hearing aides. Gee, now that I think about it, that was a great idea. He didn't have to listen to his wife's complaining!

Well some remain, at last ! I like that one !

Tuning outdoors, is less easy for me as there is no return of the sound.

Unison wise, sure the 2 ears are working but something is also felt in the tuning hammer and in the playing finger also.

I use my left ear for the bas and the right ear for the treble.
Unfortunately it might give a strange kind of dopplereffekt in the middle.

Good one,this is funny. The doppler effect would be just like the movie soundtracks.

I'm pretty sure both my ears are operating at the highest peak of efficiency, at all times and then some.

This is a cerebrum physiology-like opinion.
The right brain controls an image, a picture, intuition, musical sound, an unconscious function,
and the left brain is in charge of a language, a theory, a letter, consciousness.
So we must do piano tuning and voicing by left ear best!

This has been a very enlightening thread. There certainly is ample evidence to suggest that the left ear does most of the work. (I wonder if there is any connection to this and the fact that most of us read from left to right.) Still, though, when tuning, if I place a plug in my right ear, it is amazing how much I miss. There is good reason why we are blessed with two ears as opposed to one.

Next time you have a chance to get in front of a good dog that will look you straight in the eyes and give you a minute of focused time, try humming a few different pitches of sound (high, medium, low) and watch how the dog will shift his head to pick up the different tones. This is very amusing but seems to only work on a dog with a good attention span!

I find myself similarly tilting my head during my tunings to pick up certain tones/beats.

Kinda funny!