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Can you be more precise, using note names to describe the exact intervals you are talking about? As usual, I think I get the gist of what you are trying to tell me, but it's impossible to be sure because you're so vague with your terminology.

eg. for A3A4, the A3D4 fourth should have slightly more of a beat than the A3E4 fifth, whilst at the same time the D4A4 fifth should have slightly less of a beat than the E4A4 fifth. This doesn't really help though. But I remember what you are describing from the CHAS instructions - D4A4 should be a tiny bit purer than A3E4, whilst A3D4 should beat a tiny bit faster than E4A4.

This is way off topic, especially introducing something from CHAS. I do apologise, I'm sure alfredo will jump all over this!

Thank you, but the jury is still out on how progressive they are.

The difference in cents between an RBI beating as it should and beating as fast as the next one chromatically is about 1 cent. But the difference between an SBI beating as it should and as fast as the next one higher is only about 1/7 cent. This is because the SBIs are 7 times as just as the RBIs (2 cents vs. 14 cents.) Contiguous SBIs have about a 1/2 cent difference.

Related to this is when a 4th and a 5th have a common top or bottom note. There should be a difference in the beatrates. If not, there is about a 1/2 cent error. And maybe the piano will not cooperate in being tuned this fine, but it can give an indication about what is going on with the RBIs.

M6 3.4
M17 3.6

M3

D3F# 5.7
D#G 5.4
EG# 6.9
FA 6.7
F#A# 8.1
GB 9.3
G#C 9.0
AC# 8.6
A#D 9.5
BD# 9.1
CE 10.6
C#F 11.9
DF# 10.4
D#G 10.4
EG# ?
F4A woof

M6

D3B 7.8
D#C 7.3
EC# 7.8
FD 7.8
F#D# 9.2
GE 10.3
G#F 10.4
AF# ?
A#G 9.2
BG# 10.8
C4A 12.3

For some intervals the beats are very faint, while for others they are crystal clear, even when your dog joins in, see example below (G#F-AF#). Maybe it is possible to tune them progressively on a high quality concert grand.


Kees
PS Note how precise your dog is on pitch!

I don't know where this thread has been going lately but I just got an e-mail tonight after a very long day taking care of all the demand for piano service right before Thanksgiving. Last week, I had a young man who lives in a town about 40 miles away come to the house in his neighborhood where I was working. The owner of the house and piano was gracious enough to allow the young man named Seth to observe me tuning.

Seth had purchased the cheap correspondence course we all know about but whose name will not be mentioned for obvious reasons. It is the one that still provides a cheap tuning hammer, a C Fork and a 4ths & 5ths sequence for temperament but no RBI checks. Nobody but nobody who ever reads that material can ever produce anything near to what might pass for ET! I had been a victim of it myself, so I know how it goes.

I had seen so many people try to take the tuning exam and come up with such wacky results that 10 years ago, I decided to try to do something about it. It had to start with the CM3's, no question in my mind about that! What I wrote was not directed at people who had actually learned to tune an acceptable temperament using 4ths & 5ths, mind you, it was directed at people who had tried repeatedly and failed badly.

In 2006, Jim Coleman, Sr. had seen what I had written and recommended me as the tuning tutor at the PTG convention. I took on as many students as I could fit in, more than were scheduled and even during some night sessions. For most of the students, the CM3's were a new concept.

After the initial CM3's, one can find the next note to be tuned by remembering the phrase, "Up a 3rd, up a 3rd, down a 5th". I know there are some people who like to use 4ths. The sequence I advocate, however provides at least one check at each new note tuned and many more quickly become available.

When a problem does arise, it is not a matter of "backing up" through the sequence but going back to previously tuned notes and adjusting the tempering until the problem at hand is resolved. Simply "backing up" may only create more cumulative error.

So, anyway, I got this note from Seth tonight and here is what he said:



Seth apparently took it to heart what I told him which was not to count beats but to compare them. There is a big difference! The piano itself will indeed tell you when you have it right. Many beginners say they can't "hear" beats but I have never found one for whom that was actually true. They can hear them as well as any experienced tuner. They just need to have the right information about what to do with them.

Thanks, Kees:

OK, I now know that I am not capable of tuning chromatic M3s and M6s. Even correcting B3, it is still not quite there. B3 must have crept up. I remember checking the FD/GB inside outside test.

But I notice with correcting B3 the CM3s are progressive and the inferred cm3s are also progressive. By inferred cm3s I mean the M6s a m3 apart would be progressive. G4 is a little low, too. I see this as partly a stability and partly a discernment issue, not a sequence problem. I think I can reliably discern RBI beatrates two, but not one semitone apart.

So how accurate IS Pal's (Paladin) pitch? Someone will wonder so I will mention he is 3/4 beagle 1/4 blue tick, red and white with ticking, 12 years old, still hunts like a pup, and then pays for it that night being stiff and sore.

Gosh, I hope this Topic doesn't go down the anecdote trail. I think we could get a pretty good answer to the question of beatrate discernment and tuning accuracy with more audio samples.

I think the relationship between the various intervals will be part of this, but no one sequence has claim to using these better than another, as long as they all are used.

It always has bothered me, Bill, that you are such an adherent to CM3s and then dismiss the M6/M3 outside/inside test. I doubt that you use or teach the use of all available tests.

I don't dismiss the value of the inside 3rd/outside 6th test at all. After each of the students I taught in 2006, Jim Coleman, Sr. would come in to test the temperament and that was the first test he used and often found no errors at all or a slight one in some cases. The same error could be confirmed in any number of other ways: CM3's of course, chromatic M3's or m3's, a 4th too pure and a corresponding wobbly 5th or vice-versa, etc.

You cannot use the inside 3rd/outside 6th test until you have some inside 3rds and outside 6ths to test! It is therefore most valuable as a final check rather than one which can be used early on or to check progress while constructing the temperament.

If you construct a temperament using only a 4ths & 5ths sequence, how many notes do you have to tune until you finally have an inside 3rd and outside 6th to listen to? Suppose that test confirmed apparent equality but both intervals were either too fast or too slow to fit the rest of the scheme. Then, what did it prove? Suppose it confirms inequality. Then which notes to you move to correct it?

As for anecdotal evidence, if one or two people took the time to write to me and tell me how well the material I had taught them worked for them while no others ever did or all the rest said it didn't work for them so they tried something else and had better success, that would be anecdotal.

If on the other hand, I get such immediate and unsolicited feedback from so many people, often those who just had found my material on my website and took the time and effort to write to me to tell me that they had finally found a method that made sense and actually worked, it appears to me to be a definite trend.

Many such people have gone on to take and pass the PTG tuning exam. There has never been anyone who told me that my material didn't work for them but they found the solution in a book that was written 100 years ago that had all the information they needed. If that happened, it certainly would be anecdotal.

anecdote (plural anecdotes)

1. A short account of an incident, often humorous.
2. An account which supports an argument, but which is not supported by scientific or statistical analysis.
3. A previously untold secret account of an incident.

Bill:

This is a quote from a post you made:

"I also never depended on the "inside M3, outside M6" test because theoretically, these are not truly equal beating but only quasi equal beating."

http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/1482971/My%20tuning%20exam%20experience.html

Jeff, I may have missed something, but, "never depended" and "don't dismiss" are very different in meaning, and not at all mutually exclusive.

I'm not trying to fan flames, here. In fact, I'm hoping for... gentle answers that turn away wrath.

--Andy

Yes, :-) I do not think this is the right place to talk about sequences, methods and/or checks.

Please, Phil, refer to the "...Pre-par-a(s)tory..." thread, there I can write more. Here I will correct one passage only:

When you say..."...whilst A3D4 should beat a tiny bit faster than E4A4...", it is the other way round, A3-D4 beats slower (close to 1bps)* than E4-A4 (close to 3.5bps)*. This is fundamental, as well as the relation between the first five intervals, i.e. two 5ths (overlapped), two 4ths and the A3-A4 octave.

* = tuning mid-strings.

Regards, a.c.
.

I'll be happy to analyze more recordings of your dog. Perhaps dog assisted tuning is the way to ultimate perfection. After all compared to a dog's hearing we are practically deaf.

Kees

I have always heard fainter noises than my dog. But that is amplitude, not frequency... But what he understands best is musical emotion. He knows when I figure out how and what emotion to put into a piece. THEN he starts singing along. And when I tell him that is enough, he quiets down.

Well, they train dogs to use their sense of smell. Why not their hearing?

Well Jeff besides the fact that that the inside 3rd outside 6th test is technically quasi equal beating, the same four pairs of intervals beat equally (or apparently so) in the EBVT III. So, I guess that make it a "standard" temperament if that is so important. The same four pairs of intervals could beat equally in Reverse Well too. So, no, I don't depend on that test because it would only be redundant to other tests performed before it.

You did not answer my question: When do you use it? How many notes do you have to speculate upon the right amount of tempering before you even have one pair of intervals to listen to? Even if they are equal beating, how do you know they are not too fast or too slow at that point with respect to how the whole temperament should work out? When I get the G3-B3 M3 and the F3-D4 M6 tuned in the EBVT, those pairs are equal beating. If I tuned all of those intervals too fast they might still be equal beating. So of what value is that test in constructing a temperament? I never saw any at all.

How many times does it take for people to write to me and tell me that the material I wrote has helped them before it becomes "scientific"? How many times have you seen anyone who is learning piano tuning say that they found all the information they needed to know in the Braide-White book and went on to pass the PTG tuning exam with what they learned from that book alone?

Bill, could you please elaborate on what you eactly mean by the terms, "quasi" and "apparantly" when reffering to how intervals beat. I was not aware that beating intervals could have another beat rate in an different dimension outside of this one we are hearing them in. Is it possible that you meant to state that its not necessarily important to the quality of the temperament if they are a little off the theoretical ideals, meaning there are more important intervals your looking at instead?

If dogs had their sense of smell really trained, they would take showers more often ; )

Pfeww, that Braid White man was really the bad guy, I picture him with a hidden tuning lever hidden in his boot, ready to give you a kick with it

Sorry for the OT, it is just to keep the manifold pressure positive...

Sorry, Bill, I thought you were asking a rhetorical question.

If you were asking earnest questions, I would answer but in another Topic. Presuming that I speculate does not belong in an earnest question.

To borrow a term from the V.P. your claim that the inside outside test works for UT is malarkey.

A Standard exists. Embrace it. Love it

Where, as an object or in writing?

Do you mean the ET... M39?

Hi Ian, what are you doing so early.. :-)