Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum Use Audacity to SEE, HEAR, and MEASURE beats.

None of the above, maybe just someone with not a strong memory.

This is adressed to Hakki, definitely not to Mark:

Not a strong memory?

Only dishonest people have to remember what they say.

OK, the posts here are getting overly personal and insulting. Either discuss the topic at hand or the thread will be closed.

I'd love to see this thread continue...

A very simple app that had two adjustments (i.e., the frequency location and the volume)--where one could hear the piano being tuned through earbuds on the iMachine--that would be super sweet! If it were one of those free apps, then even better.

Thank you BB.

Just to put Gadzar at ease, students that achieve that level after one week are rare. I never claim that anyone can do that. That would be foolish.

A443. I created a video to show how I use a device exactly like to one you imagine. I made it private. Only for the owner of the business who makes the unit. He was asking how I use it. Because of your kind words and interest, I am making it public. I will make a new thread. But here is the link as well.

http://howtotunepianos.com/using-a-tuneable-audio-filter-to-hear-beats/

All I want is to be free to say what I think.

And when I did it here I was treated as a liar by Mark Cerisano.



Well, as I have showed earlier in this thread I didn't lie. Mark Cerisano has said he has trained people in 20 hours to tune a piano to a reasonable level. And by reasonable level he means "able to pass the PTG exam".

Now he says



I don't need you to put me at ease.

As I said before I never lie and all I want is the freedom to say what I think.

Yes, it is foolish to think that in 20 hours someone is going to learn to tune a piano. That's what I said in the first place. You don't like to be confronted to your own words.

And about this thread I think that using a filter to better hear beats is just a way to turn around the point. Your goal is to train the students to hear beats, isn't it?

There are tons of exercises designed to do that. Why doing exercises? Just because there are students that need them to learn. If someone can learn without exercises, good for him, he has not to do the exercises.

If you give the students a electronic filter to estimate beat rates, that's exactly what they are going to use to tune. They are not going to hear at the actual sound produced by the piano.

Have they learned to tune a piano by ear?

Well, I guess yes... by ear, but using an electronic filter...

Then why not teach them to tune with an ETD? It's visual, but it is faster to learn and very accurate.

It was you who said that some of your students finish your course without being able to hear beats in RBIs. That means they can not tune pianos! But they've paid you to learn!

It is your responsability to teach them! You are charging them for this! And there is no other way around than making them hear those RBIs.

They can't learn to swim if they don't plunge into the water. They can't learn to hear beats if they don't hear at the piano. Make them do a bunch of exercises on fast beating intervals until they've got it! If doing these exercises implies to extend the course over 20 hours, then do it. You can adjust your fees.

What you can't do is continue to charge people without teaching them to tune!


Just my opinion.

From a self made piano tuner, mechanical engineer, amateur pianist.

hi Mark, cool demo on Audacity .

Your blog is nicely presented.
Could not refrain to see in the "preferred questions" : " how much should I charge? " I hope you answer" nothing "! (until efficient, after 20 hours? )

I see beats in their whole, as they do not really add to the music played, not as beats but more as" activity". So no need to put the eyes left up, and you can tune while having a conversation with someone.
It works with memory, I assume. Not a way to learn probably but it could contain something useful.

Done!

From your page (highlights are mine):


Why Me?

Here are some great reasons to take these courses from me and not someone else:

1. I am a trained educator and professional technician with an engineering degree.

2. I have been teaching piano technology since 2005.

3. I have continually modified the course so it is now super charged with highly efficient techniques and methods to kick start your education if you are a beginner, or quickly advance your skills if you are already a technician.

4. I have received numerous accolades for my exceptional teaching style. Read here

5. Real time instruction means I can adapt the course content to fit your personal style, level, and ability, and I do it all the time.

6. Each course is 20 hours long; long enough to find out if this is for you, not so long that it drains your pocketbook.

Course Schedule – Summer 2014
If you are thinking of taking a course in tuning or repairing pianos, here are your options for this summer 2014:

1. Montreal, Quebec, Canada, July 21 – 25
Basic Tuning: 8am – 12pm
Basic Repair: 1pm – 5pm

2. Montreal, July 28 – Aug 1
Advanced Tuning 1: 8am – 12pm
Advanced Tuning 2: 1pm – 5pm

3. Toronto, Ontario, Canada, August 25 – 29
Basic Tuning: 8am – 12pm
Basic Repair: 1pm – 5pm

4. Online Live Courses
20 hours at your convenience, with or without other students.

Contact Me Now!

Contact Me immediately if you are interested. I only take a maximum of six students and I already have some spots filled for this summer.

Stay Tuned!

Mark


May 31st, 2014 Lessons on How to Tune Pianos 8 Comments »
Make Your Request Now!


From your previous post in this thread:



From

I just can't get my head around temperament







Are you kidding?

Is this for real?

Your page is in the internet! Available to all the world. You have a calendar of 20 hour courses, tuning and repair courses. You offer also on line courses 20 hours long.

In your page you don't say a word about courses been adressed to accomplished musicians! And are accomplished musicians supposed to become good technicians? What if an accomplished musician can´t hear beats in RBIs?






I can't believe my eyes!

Again, are you kidding?

Is this for real?

If your students read this posts here in PW, what are going you to say to them?.

For goodness sake .... if you want to squabble do it via private messaging. It does nothing but make you appear childish. We should all be capable of drawing our own conclusions from information gleened through posts and information on advertised web sites .... there's no benefit from airing those views in public .... going private would be a much better option.

Gadzar, it seems you've made the issue too personal, which apparently has clouded your judgment.

The filter would not be used like you apparently envision the use of an ETD; the filter is a teaching aid to point to a specific acoustic event--much like a laser pointer for sound, or a highlighter for the written word. I doubt that the device would be used by a student for more than a few hours total (i.e., in their entire lifetime).

One doesn't use this device to tune beat rates that are otherwise hard to hear--one use this device to know if one is listening at the right part of the sound to hear the event. This is a way to train your brain to listen to a specific portion of the sound.

Before one can imitate,
one must learn how to observe.

Maybe you're right. But now that I have understood Mark is teaching piano tuning in courses 20 hours long, I see why his students can not hear beats in RBIs. They have not enough time to train their ears. Even with an electronic filter 20 hours won't be enough.

All school plans I know of at univesrsities and music schools, take from 2 to 3 years of training. if you count a minimum of 4 hours per day, 5 days a week, 40 weeks a year, 2 years, then that makes a total of 1600 hours to form a piano technician. If 1 of the 4 daily hours is destined to tuning we are speaking of a minimum of 400 hours of tuning.

I have taken the basic and advanced piano tuning courses offered here in Mexico City by Yamaha. One week long each. 40 hours each.

These courses are adressed to professional piano tuners, who aspire to become Yamaha recognized piano tuner.

You take the basic tuning course and you have to work on piano tuning by your own a full year before you can take the advanced tuning course.

20 hours? beginning students? is this a joke?


I go take some rest, I have not sleeped tonight.

Thank you, A443.

It seems that using a machine as a tool and method to help train one's ear is a great idea! The simpler it is to use one, the better. Some folks might be a bit intimidated or find it cumbersome having to hook up all sorts of wires, though.

Not to take away from the original topic and importance of learning to hear fast beat rates for temperament, but my mentor taught me how to listen to and tune unisons across the register first and almost exclusively for quite some time when I started out.

He emphasized hearing/tuning unisons and then octaves as being way more important at the onset of my learning to tune journey. It was also very good for establishing strong ear-arm coordination, moving mutes and the tuning hammer around, developing/using good hammer technique/tuning stability, and keeping my own piano in tune.

On-going honing of those skills and habits made it much easier to hear and differentiate beat rates later on.

Hi Inlanding,

I couldn't agree with you more. And Gadzar and I are wholly in agreement on one topic. The words travel through my mind constantly, "How can you possibly train someone to tune a piano in 20 hours, are you nuts?!". So, you see, it is not the first time I've heard that comment, I was the first to say it.

The biggest concern of mine has always been, unisons. These are the most important element of a good tuning. And until recently, my method did not address that.

Now I am teaching Double String Unison, where the student must detune and retune a unison every time they want to change the pitch of a note. And the quality of the unison must be excellent; any "waa" or roll, and it will be transferred to the octave or other SBI like P4 and P5, making it impossible to deduce its quality. Also, RBI are not as easy to hear if a unison is not clean.

Students are constantly practicing unisons while learning to tune the piano, without exercises. If they can't tune a unison, they are stuck until they learn how.

It's not an easy method. in fact, it's painful. But, as most tuners know, learning piano tuning is painful. Some methods, like my old one, allow you some progress early, with the pain later when you realize your tunings suck. This method (DSU) is front loaded with pain.

I've just started teaching it and am tweaking it's procedure to be as efficient as possible.

Unisons are king.

+1

I for one found the video quite interesting.

I do take a little bit of issue with the part about "it shouldn't be too loud, if it is too loud" around a minute and a quarter in. If a recording is too loud / overdrives, it's very difficult to save it (unless maybe there's a way I'm not aware of). Certainly just using the "amplify" tool to reduce the volume won't help. In a case like that, I think the thing to do is reduce the gain of the recording setup. Sometimes increasing the physical separation (or playing the note/interval quieter) may be necessary.

From what I see the recording in the video was at an adequate volume, about 6 dB or so below full scale at attack (and, Mark chose to not apply his proposed change of amplitude).

I personally always try to err on the side of having a recording be a little too quiet instead of a little too loud. I find it's easier to bring something up (even if it'll be a bit noisy) than to try to clean up something that's recorded too hot.

One cannot save a wave form where it has reached clipping. Even trying to redraw the wave form to reduce it the quality is dramatically altered.

What I would like to see is a application with real-time sound acquisition and beat rate calculation at any selected frequency.

i.e. Start the application, select the band-pass filter frequency, then play the interval, then the beat rate is automatically displayed without having to manually pick start/stop points in a display.

To me, in the video, there is not that much difference in the sound of the beats between the original sound and the filtered version.

It seems to me that the Audacity filter is not very selective at the 900Hz level in this example because I can still hear the lower notes clearly, or is that just my mind reproducing them?

The Audacity filter seems not as frequency specific as is the tuneable machine. Is that because software filters do not work as effectively as a real hardware electronic filter?

The amplify suggestion was to reduce clipping that would happen when the filter is applied, not reduce clipping in the original waveform. I.e. If the waveform is recorded too loud. > 0.5 peak amity de, I would reduce the original waveform amity de to reduce the chance of clipping after the filter.

Even with the distortion at the beginning one can hear the beats.

Chris, I'm with you. That's my goal.

The benefit with Audacity is you can SEE the beats. You can pull down the other sliders to increase Q. (Is that the right term?)

Also very neat: you can create. export and import filters. I could make a bunch for the notes from say A5 to C8 (and beyond?) if people are interested.

Also cool: instead of dragging through one second, double click the seconds digit and type 1. Try it.

Thanks for all the neat comments.

I'm working on a prototype for the beat filter. The setup I have is way too bulky. The problem is finding a small powerful, inexpensive amplifier. The filter drops the signal strength way down.

I would like to add one modification to the procedure that helps to speed it up.

Instead of manually dragging through one second to count the beats, you can just select a spot in the wave, peak or valley, then double click on the seconds digit, and type the number "1". Audacity will automatically swipe through one second exactly.

Thanks again for all the great comments.